Turkey will soon take steps regarding cryptocurrencies, which have become an issue of concern for many governments and central banks.
A law on cryptocurrencies is ready and will soon be discussed at the national assembly, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Friday during a meeting with the press in Istanbul where he also made statements on Turkey’s new economy model and finance model.
The country has already been accelerating its work on regulations for the digital tokens’ market, particularly after two cryptocurrency exchanges collapsed in April.
The government is looking to establish a central custodian bank to eliminate counterparty risk, a Bloomberg report said at the time, citing a senior official familiar with the plans.
The collapse of Thodex and Vebitcoin, among the country’s largest trading platforms, dealt a major blow to hundreds of thousands of Turkish cryptocurrency investors, who were unable to access millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets after the exchanges went down.
Authorities are also said to be pondering a capital threshold for exchanges and education requirements for executives at such firms, the official told Bloomberg.
The already growing crypto boom in Turkey further gained pace throughout the year as investors joined a global rally in Bitcoin, hoping to gain from the cryptocurrency’s rise to shelter against inflation.
Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) Governor Şahap Kavcıoğlu also said previously the Treasury and Finance Ministry is working on wider regulations regarding cryptocurrencies, adding that the bank does not intend to ban them.
