Bitcoin Forum

The Turkish government is currently rounding up members of the groups that launched a military coup in recent days. During the coup, citizens ran to their banks and local ATMs to get their wealth out of the system as Turkey’s currency dropped significantly in value.

BTC Supporters Tell Turkish Citizens to Turn to Cryptocurrency

As usual, many Bitcoiners believe residents living in Turkey should look to bitcoin to preserve their wealth. The Turkish Lira’s value has suffered as the military coup stirred fear throughout the country. With the civil unrest unfolding, media publications such as Seeking Alpha are reporting about bitcoin being used as a financial safe haven.

https://news.bitcoin.com/turkish-bitcoin-military-coup/

I wonder if the Turkish people found it easy to buy bitcoins. I could imagine how hard it would be for a newcomer and there's also a trust issue with them when introduced to something new. The proper infrastructure to get bitcoins is not there yet for ordinary people to get into it. So I guess the more tech savvy individuals were the ones who bought. So it's not really that much.

I think they are doing the same, as from that day we are seeing that the price of bitcoin increases, it means the demand has increased and so the value will also increase much more, but still they will worry about the price and will have the fear of volatility.

Is there any hard local data to show that turks are actually buying BTC right now? it seems to me that everytime a crisis happens, folks talk a lot about a swing to BTC without necessarily showing supporting data.

The BTC price really spiked during the Cyprus crisis:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/

I'll take this as an opportunity to stand on my soapbox and preach: people don't know about Bitcoin because there is virtually no marketing for Bitcoin. If Coinbase would make even a 30-second ad showing why BTC is better, their business would increase and the value of BTC would rise. But they don't, and that is completely illogical to me. </rant>

So, tell all of your friends about Bitcoin (or Monero if they want untraceable and private transactions). The time may come when they need to move their money and they need to know in advance how to do it. The folks in Cyprus thought it would never happen, nor did the folks in Turkey, nor in Greece, nor in Venezuela, nor in ____.

I think alot of this would depend on if they can easily spend them for the things they needed (unless they are thinking long term which does make sense)  I heard alot were going out to buying up essential supplies.  So i guess if you were wealthy, it may have been a great idea

Devaluation of currency have also forced lots of chinese citizen to invest or atleast convert their wealth to bitcoin, which is quite not effected by a single country economics or politics. And with constant development rise in bitcoin price is quite obvious. Hope that turkey will be returned to their normal stable life and politics.

the similar thing happened twice before and people of those two countries have not really turned to bitcoin (at least not much anyways) but the news alone has cause a nice rise in bitcoin price.

so i wonder what do you guys think about the effect of this news on bitcoin price this time around?

I do not think this is very realistic. During the military coup, most people are worry about their lives and, if possible withdraw as much cash as possible. Exchanging Lira to bitcoin is too complicated for most people and that would have been the last thing they want to worry about.

This is very true. I seriously doubt people were trying to convert their cash to BTC.

If you have to relocate to another country, that is one of the first things you would need to worry about. How will you relocate to another country, if you cannot exit the country with your wealth? Bitcoin is one of the best ways to quickly move funds from one country to the next. I can leave my country today, and relocate to another country and I will have startup money available in the new country within hours from my arrival. Try doing that with any other method, when your country is at war.

Bitcoin is digital and not restricted by the government that wants to stop you from taking your wealth out of the country. You only need to store the information {Private Key} and you are ready to start a new life in a new country.  

sounds like a nice plan if you wanna leave the country with your wealth bitcoin is a solution..but the most weak spot on that is IF a military coup is well organized first things to shut down would be the media,telecommunications (internet,phones) and after that the tank can roam the city ... so if internet goes down.. you are in deep shit!  :(

If only the residents of Turkey where more aware of bitcoin and how it could help them.  So many more people could buy into bitcoin to secure their money but the reality is that most people have probably either never heard of it or don't know how to buy it.  And those who may attempt it may be wary due to not fully understanding it.  The more awareness of bitcoin we can spread the better it will be for everyone in the long run.

That military coup in Turkey was a complete circus and everyone knows it was staged so that Erdogan can solidify his position at the helm of the country more. With such a radical leader like him I think Turkey will have a very hard time ahead and it will be no surprise if Bitcoin gets outlawed in Turkey in the near future. The Turkish government is so used to censoring social media and the Internet that Bitcoin is 100% doomed in such a backwards country like Turkey.

This is a sign that bitcoin is going to flourish longer than we thought. This just shows that bitcoin could save the people from an economic devastation in their own country. This may bring more bitcoin users to the system due to increase of trust to the new cryptocurrency. Let's do bitcoin to save our wealth so when banks fall down we still have our bitcoins to cling on.

i hope this is the news that starts the rise this time, i have seen this before with the Cyprus news and if this time Turkish news can start the big rise that would be great. i am not talking about their people buying bitcoin but the idea of it alone can make many change.

You could check localbitcoins turkey for instance.
http://charts.coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/TRY (http://charts.coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/TRY)
I think the new coming stats for the actual week will be very interesting to watch.

Exactly. Bitcoin could see a small bump in volume due to Turkish Bitcoin-related buying more than usual. But most people would rather buy stable foreign currency, much simpler and safer option.


^^^ this guy gets it.

Ludicrous.

If there is some currency strife they're going to buy Euros or Dollars. They're available and exchangeable everywhere.

I don't think that you would spend your time thinking about changing your money to bitcoins on a military coup, i think that I will be more worried about other things.

Where's the evidence for this? What's the difference between a leader trying to consolidate power due to megalomania, and a leader trying to consolidate power due to external interference? I'm not saying that it's either one or the other, I don't know. All I know is, the political players in Turkey seem to behave like schizophrenics, Erdogan in particular. Depending on what you believe, Erdogan is both fighting ISIS and helping them, and Erdogan is both fighting US/NATO influence and simultaneously helping them. Both stories cannot be true overall, but the evidence for both being true exists.

So why is Erdogan helping and fighting both US/NATO and ISIS? Who are sworn enemies of each other? Strange. I'm not sure if the real story is as simple as you suggest, quite the opposite.


Indeed, so maybe relatively stable countries that could see consequences from instability in Turkey might takes this as a warning sign, to give them a chance to protect themselves with Bitcoin while they still can. I understand that, for instance, Greece is in Turkey's neighbourhood...

^ Unironically believing US is a sworn enemy of IS meme

wew lad

Because Turkey in its current state is leaning towards radical Islam which is very dangerous for the stability of Europe. Turkey tried to play dirty with Russia also but Putin told Erdogan to go fuck himself right? Do you honestly believe that Erdogan cares about NATO or USA? He is probably tired of licking everyone's asses that's why he staged that fucking coup so he can gain control of the secular Turkish army which is actually one of the most sizeable armies in the world. When he gains control of the army he won't care about his friends in the White House nor about NATO because radical Islam doesn't care about anything but Muslim superiority.

I will quote what radical Islam means for you:

Sorry to mislead, separating the layers of what I believe and what others believe is too complicated these days, lol.

What I should have said was "Who purport to be sworn enemies of each other", that would be more accurate. Remember folks: successful terrorist organisations (that last more than 5 minutes) DO NOT ATTACK THE PEOPLE THEY SEEK TO CONVINCE. Because that would be a really stupid tactic.

Only the warmongers are benefiting from the Middle Eastern conflict, and so the only sensible possibility is that the governments waging the Middle Eastern wars are supplying the command, money and resources (if not the soldiers themselves) to ISIS. The soldiers are indirectly US/NATO anyway, as they will have been inspired by the decades old conflict that Western governments created (i.e. their dead families and relatives inspired them to join an army who claimed to want to fight against US/NATO, reality is that US/NATO wants as many people dead or in fear of death as possible so that they can present themselves as the protectors everyone needs etc).