Turkey President Confirms Crypto Law Is Ready And Headed To Parliament For Approval

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country is launching a new economic model, the draft crypto bill is prepared and will be sent to parliament soon. As reported by local TV, NTV, in a press conference in Dolmabahce Palace, Istanbul, Erdogan said that the draft law on cryptocurrencies is ready and will be submitted for discussion and approval with the Turkish parliament. He expressed the hope that with the new economic model, the country will make a leap forward, and the law will facilitate crypto use in the country. Erdogan told journalists: “The law is ready, we will send it to Parliament soon without delay, We know there are risks, but there are opportunities as well. And we should take this risk.” The bill has not yet been published nor the Turkish President has provided any further details on the bill content. However, Erdogan noted that “citizens must know that their money is secured by the Central Bank.” So it seems that the transition to a new economic model has been agreed upon and will be supported by the Central Bank of Turkey, which will become the regulator of crypto. The decision of the Turkish government came as a surprise to many crypto participants because, in the past, both the government and the central bank of Turkey never showed a friendly attitude towards the industry. In April, the Central Bank said that crypto-assets cannot be used directly or indirectly as a payment instrument. The lira weakened against the dollar for the ninth year in a row. Since the beginning of the year, the currency has fallen by 46.5% and became the third currency in the world to fall against the Dollar so aggressively, Only the Cuban peso (-95.8%) and the Libyan dinar (-70.9%) are worse-performing currencies than Lira. The fall of the Lira has made Turkey citizens aggressively use crypto. As reported by The CryptoBasic because of the instability faced by the lira, local traders are attracted to the exceptional returns associated with coins such as SHIB. The priority of Turkish citizens is gold and the dollar, but they also buy cheap cryptocurrencies like SHIB, VET, XRP because BTC is expensive. Traders in Turkey also use tether as a proxy for dollar exposure. In January 2021, the daily trading volume of cryptocurrency exchanges in Turkey exceeded $1 billion for the first time, and as Lira kept on falling that volume crossed $7 Billion in Dec 2021. At the time of writing, $1 is worth 11 Lira, whereas, on Dec 20, $1 was worth 7.5 Lira. However, Turkey’s lira jumps by more than 40% in a day after President Erdogan announced a new economic model. According to CoinMarketCap, more than 16% of the world’s crypto users come from Turkey, which makes Turkey the 4th largest country in the world in terms of crypto users.