The Fall of Turkey’s Currency Lira is The Rise Of BTC

The economic crisis faced by the European nation has resulted in the decline of its local currency, Lira, and citizens are now putting their money somewhere else – cryptos!

According to Forbes, BTC and cryptocurrency trading volumes have experienced a massive increase at a time when the country battles one of its biggest economic woes.

In this regard, Turkey’s largest exchange, Koinim reported a 63% increase in Bitcoin trading volume, while the other top exchanges, BTCTurk and Paribu have their volumes up by 35% and 100% respectively.

The swift adoption of BTC in Turkey is because cryptocurrencies are not banned in the country, unlike India or Iran. Turkish exchanges are still permitted to deal directly with local banks, thus allowing residents to exchange their Lira for BTC and not turn to peer to peer exchanges like LocalBitcoins.

Crypto Safer Than Lira

It is easy to understand that the Turkish populace is converting fiat to crypto for fears their native currency declines further. The Lira has reportedly lost over 25% against the dollar just in the past week after President Donald Trump doubled the import tariffs for steel and aluminum on Turkey.

For the fiat decline, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged patriotic citizens to sell their gold, Euros, and USD for Lira in other to give it a lift but right now, it seems no one is paying attention.

Some residents are reportedly turning their remaining Lira to USD and Euros while even more people are migrating to cryptocurrencies as shown by the increase in local exchange trading volumes.

Popular internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is among those leading the call for residents to convert their money to cryptocurrencies.

Trust me. Buy crypto and gold. Your USD will become worthless. With US economic collapse all old money currencies will crash.

Times will get tough. But you’ll be fine if you hedge some of your assets in preparation for the crash.

The big crash is coming 100%.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 12, 2018

The Turkish cryptocurrency industry is currently recording its largest investment volumes, and this could continue into the new week as attempts to resurrect the Lira has continued to prove abortive.

Experts believe that if Turkey’s economic crisis continues then the country could turn to create a national cryptocurrency, the same strategy used by Venezuela earlier this year when its Bolivar lost its value against the dollar.

Iran is also one of the countries considering a national cryptocurrency to involve tax sanctions to be imposed by the US government.