Turkey banned crypto payments as of today and they cannot be longer used directly or indirectly for payments according to the reports by the Turkish Central Bank so let’s read more about it in our latest cryptocurrency news.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were banned in Turkey according to a notice published today by the country’s central bank. BTC dropped by 2% after the announcement which cited “irreparable” damages and major risks with transactions that involve crypto. The new legislation will go into effect on April 30. Cryptocurrencies were booming in the country which saw inflation weaken the value of the Turkish Lira. The national sovereign cryptocurrency hit historic lows last month and coincided with a spike in Turkey’s Google Searches for the number one cryptocurrency.
A nation of 82 million sees its currency crash 15% in a single day.
No coincidence that Turkey has some of the highest per-capita Bitcoin usage in the world.
A growing number of Turks are peacefully choosing a different monetary system that their oppressors can’t control. https://t.co/BD0bl7URic
— Alex Gladstein (@gladstein) March 21, 2021
The Central Bank of Turkey said that the ban on direct or indirect uses for crypto and other digital assets was quite necessary because these assets aren’t subject to regulation and other supervision mechanisms nor a central regulatory authority. Turkey banned crypto payments while accounting for a large percentage of cryptocurrency use in the Middle East. The country was 29th out of the 154 countries on forensics company Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption Index and became number one in the Middle East. On the BTCTurk crypto exchange, the most common trade is lira for BTC:
“The [Turkish] lira has been extremely volatile in recent years, prompting some to shift portions of their savings to cryptocurrency.”
The report showed that the pre-existing adoption for the payments platforms was much higher in Turkey than anywhere else in the region and that will likely mean that a regulatory framework will be adopted and will lead to even more crypto adoption. The Turkish authorities however chose a draconian stance in contrast to other nations like the UAE. The Turkish cryptocurrency industry representative stated that fears over capital controls could push the regular citizens towards seeking an alternative that doesn’t involve regular bank accounts.
Similar to India, and various other countries that tried the ban of crypto before, Turkey could want to reconsider the drastic move that it made a day ago. As recently reported, Huobi plans to expand in Turkey and wants to become the biggest international player that will launch trading of the Turkish Libra by 2020.
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