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For the first time in history Turkish Central bank forbid his citizen to spend their Bitcoins, introducing the :

State Hodl!

The Turkish Central Bank, worried about its citizens, prohibits them from using precious sats to buy things, and by law obliges them to hodl:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blob1249acccc4df904a.png
https://twitter.com/DocumentingBTC/status/1382830629700595712?s=20

Below is the detail of the provision:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzDNFf7WUAERoQB?format=jpg&name=large
https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2021/04/20210416-4.htm

A good reporting by Reuters:
Turkey bans crypto payments citing risks, hits Bitcoin price (https://www.reuters.com/technology/turkey-bans-use-cryptocurrencies-payments-sends-bitcoin-down-2021-04-16/#:~:text=TechnologyTurkey%20bans%20crypto%20payments%20citing%20risks%2C%20hits%20Bitcoin%20price&text=Turkey's%20central%20bank%20banned%20the,that%20cooled%20global%20bitcoin%20prices.)

They report on the crypto markets in Turkey:

Let's remember what country Turkey is giving a few details of the economy.

Turkish Currency (TRY) vs Dollar Chart:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blob41503631b0444b5c.jpeg

Turkish Inflation Chart:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blobaf2f99429af9e3dc.jpeg

If you start thinking think about what it means to have double-digit inflation, you immediately understand why the volumes in the Exchange are not subjected to KYC have been consistently high in Turkey over the last years:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blobc0ed7ca008316a11.jpeg

Turkish citizens aren't trying to get rich quickly speculating on virtual currencies, but are trying not to get poor slowly getting robbed by inflation.

Seriously, what does the Turkish government want to achieve?

• The Bitcoin ban. Impossible, how can it prevent two private citizens from exchanging cryptocurrencies? Among other things, Turkey is a country with a huge underground economy, certainly, those who want to pay in black are not frightened by this measure.
• Have total control of the Ramp on/off mechanisms. By allowing only banks to legally exchange Bitcoins, the government hopes to have control of all cryptocurrency holders for any subsequent "actions". I already see it more likely. Even if for the reasons mentioned above, I always find it difficult.
• Other ideas?

I think a good summary could be the following: "They do not hate what bitcoin does, they hate what bitcoin represents".


BITCOIN IS A TROJAN HORSE FOR FREEDOM (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-is-a-trojan-horse-for-freedom)

I think that 1 Bitcoin is currently worth around 486,920 TRY, and 1 TRY is worth $0.12.
Turkey annual inflation was above 16% in March, meaning that situation with Turkish Lira is not looking good and inflation will hit them even harder so they are just afraid of losing control, and they banned Bitcoin and crypto as payment option but it affected global crypto market in a bad way for sure.
I don't think many people are actually using Bitcoin for payment in Turkey and in other parts of the world (because of higher fees) but some other altcoins (read BCH) may be affected much more with this.
We are also starting to hear some news about weapons preparing for new war around Turkey, and situation with inflation is similar and even worse in other countries around the world, so we may see some new regulations and bans soon.

The reasons are pretty valid imo. Yes the blockchain transactions are irreversible and once you get scammed by a person, there will be no 3rd party to help you and reverse the transaction. Credit Card companies like VISA and MC can help you in these situations, you find nobody when you use a crypto currency. Also, I know most people are way more stupid than what they think they are and in this situation the government is basically protecting them from their own stupidity. This crypto stuff is not suitable for dumb people.

The state simply don't want to deal with these cases that will consume too much resources and in the end it will lead no nothing.

Can a bank forbid people from exchanging goods and services for any kind of reward? If a citizen chooses to be rewarded in his/her community's tokens or with other assets... they mean the citizen has broken  his country's law ?

Well, people could build Decentralized networks/systems/applications that can help "governments" regulate and earn from them  without  letting the governments  violent their good ideals/principles. People who use them to commit serious crimes could lose their right to be protected by the network, or their rights to the benefit from the ideals.

I guess it isn't THAT bad compared to the headlines I've been seeing on social media. If I understand correctly — using cryptocurrencies for buying/selling stuff is what's forbidden, not necessarily buying/selling of cryptocurrencies. Not sure how well adopted cryptocurrencies are on Turkey in terms of merchant adoption though.

That was expected from any central bank. Banking lobby is dead against bitcoin for a good reason- their own existence! Bitcoin has indeed challenged the banks and showd the common man that bank is not needed if you want to control your own money! So it's no wonder that central banks from many countries have issued directives against bitcoin and its usage. Even the central bank in my country have done the same. But did that hurt bitcoin? Not at all!

it seems that you are right, and markets overreacted in the first place, but we will have to wait to see how the situation will develop
people are not forced to sell or anything, they are just banned from using the crypto directly for purchase, and that is a rare situation at the moment, they could exchange their crypto through exchange and than use fiat

agree, not that bad as looked on first social network reaction

If we go by the wording they've chosen exchange too fall into that category so you are not banned from selling buying cryptos but you are banned from sending money in and out, which is essentially the same.


Let's be realistic on this, bitcoin was not used in daily deals that didn't involve trading on a large scale, and there are limitations, 400k daily transactions for the entire globe and a current 8$ fee for a tx, which is close to the average daily income for them. Seriously, you really believe some employees on the black market pay the wages in coins there? They will stick to cash if not their useless garbage EURO and USD, I had no problem in Turkey paying directly with cash euros, not even converting them.

What they achieved is killing local exchanges, people that trade on international exchanges will be warier, and some of them who know they would be in more trouble due to the source of the money will simply quit.

Now let's see how those millions of supposed turkish users will react, the last time there were claims of tens of million holding coins which I always thought to be impossible.

At the end, you need to use your crypo to buy and sell stuff.
Remember we are talking about a double digit inflation economy, so cryptos are used to protect your purchasing power in a very short timeframe, rather than hodling for the future.


Wow, mate, I do agree with the premises (crypto is not for the dumb people) but I strongly disagree with the conclusions ( government does the right thing protecting the dumb citizens): I think I want everybody should be held accountable for his own choices.

What a shitty move by the Turkish government. Any proper explanation as to why they did this? Why are they "worried" about their citizen lol. Almost every citizen that invests or gets involved with bitcoin knows what they are doing. Why does the government has to be concerned about what their people are doing "willingly"?
So banned only as a mean of exchange for goods and services only? This means they can do p2p transactions? And maybe sell their coins instantly for fiat and buy the goods and services?

So what they are saying between the lines is this : We the government have to have full control over your wealth and the information on how you are spending and using that wealth. We want to know where your wealth are going and how much taxes we can milk from you.

You are also a criminal if you spend any bitcoins or Crypto currencies, because we should control everything. (Actually, we do not want any competition to our fiat currency the Turkish lira)  ::)

You can still pay someone with a horse or a chicken in a barter arrangement, but no barter in Crypto currencies.  >:(

We = their government

good luck to the central back on controlling it...

I think they want to control Bitcoin and crypto currency transactions by bank account only so they can put tax rules later, this looks like a preparation for taxation.
Buying and selling crypto currencies are not banned, Turkish exchanges are still working and they have huge volume. When you check rule 4.2, you can't use 3rd parties like Papara, Ininal etc. to withdraw your money from exchanges after 30 April.
Buying real estate, cars or çiğ köfte/lahmacun/kebap ;D with crypto currencies is not possible anymore. I don't expect this rule to stay forever though, they may change it later.

This is very similar to the move by the Reserve Bank of India back in 2018 when it prohibited all banks within India to stop giving service to any crypto based business. This meant that every exchange got shuttered and a lot of people sold off their holdings as they had no way to liquidate their crypto.

I don't know about Turkey but in India, that prohibition only meant that the fiat on-off ramps stopped existing. You could still hold crypto and do what you want with it. A lot of people who were only interested in day-trading sold off but some people kept their crypto. In 2020, a petition filed by those exchanges won in the Supreme court and this prohibition from RBI was termed illegal. Lately, there have been wide speculation about a parliamentary legislation though.

Turkey seems to be going through the same paces. People won't be able to buy and sell directly but you can still keep Bitcoin. Good time to reorganize all the P2P stuff. There are a lot of people from the Turkish community and i suppose we will start seeing an uptick in the marketplace involving Turkish businesses.

Turkish people are already dead poor. The minimum wage is like 400 bucks. I see people selling their homes and cars and going all-in with bitcoin. There is no way I can support this behavior. I hate the governments as much as the next guy but I also think people shouldn't be allowed to mass suicide.

When the crypto goes south, and every once in a while it does, it will be disastrous for many Turkish people. Most of these guys have no clue about any risk management. They haven't invested in any stocks in their life before. They all jumped to bitcoin.

While not necessarily for everyone, I'm really not sure in the case of Turkey. They don't necessarily need to spend the crypto to pay for things(even with the case of having a bad economy); I'm guessing that they're just going to convert the crypto to fiat and immediately use the fiat to pay. Not sure if that still falls under the "means of exchange" category though, because I don't know crap about laws and stuff. Feel free to enlighten me.

This is controlling people's money indirectly by peddling the front that they are 'worried' about their citizens but all they want to do is contain bitcoin within their borders. They have completely ran out of ideas to control their massive inflation rate and they are turning towards other assets that they think will save the plunging economy. I don't know why would they prohibit bitcoin payments in the first place if those weren't even huge in Turkey given that most are into bitcoin for speculative reasons. Anyhow, this wouldn't solve any problems Turkey has at hand, and will only garner negative feedback from its citizens in the long run.

Your last paragraph is touchy! That is why Satoshi made the bitcoin in first place so as to free the citizens in his lil world! Today government is afraid that bitcoin like asset/currency can destroy the way people are transacting in the country. Most of the criminal activities to the money laundering of actor or politician is done through the crypto only and thus the use is ever growing.

Whenever there is news like this central authority banned bitcoin and that government is regulating the bitcoin, then it only means that it's time to laugh on them. How on the earth they gonna ban it fully? By taking down the exchanger? No prob! We have P2P's to work with. By taking down the P2P services? No prob, people can work around the public place and exchange the coins. That's really funny yet amazing world introduced by Mr. Satoshi! Respect!

Some country's central bank tried to ban bitcoins even when their government allows their citizens to use cryptocurrency. So banks are keen about not letting their people to achieve economic freedom which is another eye opener for the people all around the world about banks, they are not helping you they just wanted to keep you poor.

Apparently this is turning into a possible political war, as one of the main Turkish opponents has become very Pro-Bitcoin, although it is not a bad thing, they want everyone to win their part and get the best victory, but in terms from money can everything happen:

Turkey’s Main Opposition Leader Waves the Bitcoin Flag

https://i.imgur.com/xbZAWAD.png


Source: https://www.trustnodes.com/2021/04/16/turkeys-main-opposition-leader-waves-the-bitcoin-flag (https://www.trustnodes.com/2021/04/16/turkeys-main-opposition-leader-waves-the-bitcoin-flag)

I see your point, but it's not jumping into Bitcoin, it's jumping OUT TRY, which is a sinking boat.
I bet they would be happy to buy dollars too, but cash dollars Is difficult to find I am afraid, hence the use of Bitcoin.

That's kind of the question I have, not being familiar with Turkey or its government structure.  This regulation/prohibition was, from what I see here, issued by the central bank of Turkey.  Can anyone shed some light on how much power they have?

And man, we have a very strong and vocal Turkish community here on bitcointalk.  I'm not sure if they post often in the English section about issues like this, but I'd like to hear from some of them on this particular issue.  But assuming this is law, it really sucks for the bitcoiners of Turkey--and I do hope that this shit doesn't become a trend.

I posted a message on their local board warning about this thread. Hopefully, they will pop here to give us a local touch on this subject.

The government of Turkey is trying to protect their currency, that is all there is to it, for now they are just forbidding the use of bitcoin as a means of exchange but it is not going to take long before they ban any kind of transaction that includes bitcoin, am I surprised by this? Not really, this is to be expected, it seems that governments have a script they follow no matter what when their currency begins to fail.

And the government of Turkey is following the script to the letter, if the current economic situation in Turkey keeps going in the direction that is going I will not be surprised if gold and silver become forbidden as well and even the use of any other currency like the dollar or the euro as the government tries to force people to accept their currency no matter what.

In addition, the growing price of bitcoin and of the entire cryptocurrency is now alarming the banking system. Indeed, an increasing amount of capital is being invested in cryptocurrency, and this can begin to affect the existing global financial system. On the other hand, the rise in the price of cryptocurrency increases the risk of loss of investment for citizens due to their mistakes and ordinary stupidity. Governments, of course, will not stand aloof from this process for long. Therefore, the regulation of cryptocurrency on their part will grow. Outright bans, as in the case of Turkey, are not the best way to do this. But, at the same time, cryptocurrency is now rarely used as a means of payment.

We buy whatever we can to escape the Lira. This has been the case for many decades. Euro, Dollar, BTC, Gold, Real Estate, Land and even cars... as long as it is not the Lira that you are holding, you are good to go. None of these I mentioned however are as volatile as BTC (or crypto. many people are not investing in bitcoin tbh. They buy shitcoins) like I said during the next bear market many people will suicide here.

my guess is this ban is a countermeasure against current illegal gambling and betting epidemic in turkey. they were using legal payment processors to exchange their illegal liras into bitcoins.

Turkish government are very much aware of the panic they can create with a ban statement and from observation with nations that have tried to ban bitcoin within there jurisdiction, it oftens turns out that, the citizens tends to purchase even more. There would be those that panic and sell off but then, there is always buyers that would be very open to deals within the same nation.

The Turkish government are aware of this fact and as such, they came up with a tricky theory or should I say a decorated ban statement by not directly banning citizens from its acquisition but rather, its use for exchange. Now tell me, of what use is a currency if it isn't used for exchange? Cryptocurrency is already having a had time being used as a medium of exchange due to high fees and gere is a proposed law to further hinder it from attaining this currency value.

Here us a scheme that leads to a more greater conspiracy scheme and it would be best should the crypto community keep doing what they've been doing. A ban or restriction isn't what would save a nation from economic crisis.

We can't really know the main intention behind it, this is just a law that was put in place and there is no reasoning given. However as far as I know there was a big problem with the gambling using crpto as well, that seemed like a story a year ago or so, which is why I do not know if it is still a problem or not. But, I do assume that it could be a really big deal or not that caused this.

If Turkey has a lot of people who pay with crypto and deposit to casinos and gamble with it, and the government specifically banned gambling, that means people are using crypto to find loops around the law and use it as a means of exchange.

Not like we live in a world where we pay for our dinner with crypto, so it wasn't really a big means of exchange anyway, where do you really spend your crypto? And this law prohibits third parties to be middleman for crypto means of exchange as well, you are still free to do it directly from person to person as long as you do not use another company in between, doesn't sound like a big deal.

     Damn. I really feel bad for the turkish people who have spent many years in studying this industry and pouring their blood and sweat. All the hard work gome to waste(in a sense). Even the fruits of their labor cannot be enjoyed as much anymore due to this unfair action of the turkish government and bank. This is scary. I hope this never happens in my counrry ever.

It's interesting to see that Turkey has come out with very generic guidelines. They have basically stopped anyone doing anything into cryptos and have even stopped everyone to create any business models around cryptocurrencies but this would hamper the growth of their blockchain industry too. Primarily also destroyed it as a medium of payment even in International Transactions. But here is a very interesting loophole at least for the investors/ traders that I have found:


If we go by the literal explanation of these lines, this means that no exchange can be built up in Turkey and no person of turkey can operate an exchange or wallets. But there is no restriction on any person holding crypto in their private key wallets or in international exchanges. The law is applicable to the institutions and not the users of these institutions. Moreover, I cannot see the list of punishments in this circular? Is it that the defaulters will be tried under the Central Bank Act which already contains punishments.

---

I think a random guess which I can make after the US Sanctions on Turkey and the long-time troubles with the Turkish Lira and its devaluation can be a problem. If people's faith over their fiat will reduce they will start to use another form of currencies especially cryptocurrencies which would lead to lower demand of their currency and further aggravating the problem. Basically, they are at very early stages of becoming another Zimbabwe and they definitely don't want to become one.

Did the report mention banning mining, dealing with the derivatives market, or speculating on bitcoin prices? I am lazy to read the details of the report. :P
Are there penalties for all violators and how will the conditions of companies that deal with Bitcoin?

Turkey is one of the countries that have frightening inflation, and the Central Bank has taken many steps to ensure that the value of the currency is not manipulated, which occurred several times during the last five years for political reasons.

This step will not be long-term and may be allowed to buy and sell again next year, although I would not be surprised if people continue to trade.

The verbiage is clear, they want banks to have central authority on the currency in the country, and so anyone that establishes a competitor will be fined, or jailed. No one can stop anyone from using crypto, it's P2P. The whole idea of regulation is to scare people from mass adoption, and restricting companies from practicing freely. Realistically, most people need exchanges if they're going to turn their local currency into a crypo.

Turkey isn't the first country to do this. I noticed first world countries haven't been so explicit about banning crypto, but that's because they don't view crypto as a threat, yet.

I don't think in the current shape and form bitcoin is a big threat to the banks or fiat. 95% use cryptos and bitcoins only for investment holding and quick returns while rest 5% also don't transact with it on daily basis. So I don't think it's due to compeition. A more prominent reason could be liquidity. They would not want the liquidity of their currency to go out of the system as it could lead to devlation. Yes Scaring the people away is obviously the main idea and talking about companies, I don't really think a lot of companies outside US are looking at Bitcoin as an investment option.

I think this is exactly how it will end for USD as well. After printing trillions of dollars out of thin air and people start to realize that their bank accounts are losing its buying power against goods very fast, they will want to spend them all on anything.

Inflation will trigger a snowballing effect and when everybody decides to get out at the same time, it will quickly become hyperinflation. The FED will either want to raise the rates and kill every market there is to stop the bleeding, or they will accept hyperinflation. Either way the future is ugly.

They are planning create a new tax system about cryptocurrencies so they have to control fiat money traffic at cryptocurrency exchanges.


No, it's not similar. Central Bank just banned 3rd parties because they can not control fiat money traffic at 3rd parties. Sending/Receiving fiat money via bank accounts is still available. They didn't banned crypto exchanges, money transfers.

There is one little difference between the TRY and the USD.
Notwithstanding the huge amount of Brr, there is no better FIAT currency than USD. Surely not the EUR, nor the GBP (yet). CHF might be a better alternative, but the CHF economy is tiny and cannot hold the whole planetary demand.
If you cannot buy other stuff and you are caged in the FIAT pen, then USD is the place to be.

On the Turkish CB there is another document giving a little bit more information on the ban:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blob42b2d6d8e380499e.png
Source (https://www.tcmb.gov.tr/wps/wcm/connect/d95ee526-10cb-46c7-aa88-add68a9c1993/ANO2021-17.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-d95ee526-10cb-46c7-aa88-add68a9c1993-nzp3dra)

Also, CoinDesk published an article on the matter:
Turkey to Ban the Use of Crypto for Payments; Bitcoin Falls (https://www.coindesk.com/turkey-bans-crypto-payments-trading)

I know the USD is a reserve currency but I am not sure if that reserve currency status will be enough to save it this time. They are counting on the infinite USD demand but I can see that the inflation is gaining traction even in the US and as I said above, if everybody starts to see that... that demand will be gone very fast and it will be a dump fest starting from there.

During most of my financial life, I saved my savings in USD and EUR. There is one big difference this time, saving in USD isn't protecting me like it used to do.

I know it is still better than the lira but the prices are going nuts even against the dollar or they are raising the taxes, saving in USD don't make sense anymore. (not to me at least) I feel like I better buy real stuff instead. I haven't invested any in any FIAT starting this year and I am actually converting some of my FIAT to something else (some non-FIAT stuff) and reducing its weight in my portfolio.

From here every new administration in the US will keep printing multiple trillions of Dollars and it will never end until the Dollar is no more.

Well, as I can see it --the reason why Turkish central banks banned cryptocurrency is that they find it as a threat to their economy. As we know, Turkey’s economy is dramatically going down every month. And the inflations are heavy. They couldn’t afford to lose authority as they might shrink and that’s a pain in the ass on the government’s side. What I would suggest to them is that instead of banning the use of cryptocurrency they might simply consider taking advantage of it by creating a tax program exclusively for tax users. Adding VAT to crypto-assets might also be a good idea.

With this law, Turkish Central Bank minimizes and prevents the advances that are being achieved with the use of cryptocurrencies in that country.
A few days ago I saw on Twitter a business in Turkey that said accepting AVAX. The announcement referred to the AVAX token of a new blockchain network and I assume that the owners of this premises also accept other cryptocurrencies. I was so happy and I started to imagine that in the future both in Turkey and anywhere in the world that is a good start. But the obstacles posed by the world's Central Banks to what can be achieved with bitcoin is unheard of. We must continue as we are doing not stop and conquer our financial freedom with cryptocurrencies.

Very dumb move by the Turkish Central Bank. How do you even sensor Peer-peer payment system? Don't these people think before they act? they want to control everything and slowly make the people poor. This is going to have no negative effect on the crypto world, Turkish economy doesn't define world trade, it's a good trade and investment destination. The real crypto guys will bypass this and I expect some litigation against this Central Bank action.

Check the original thread again. The central bank hasn't banned the P2P transactions. The ban only covers usage of cryptocurrency as a form of payment, to purchase goods and services. There is no ban, if you want to sell your cryptocurrency for fiat (either using the mainstream exchanges or the P2P platforms). So the solution is actually very simple. You first need to convert your BTC to fiat, before purchasing these goods/services.

They want to stimulate the circulation of fiat to fiat so I don't necessarily say that it is a dumb move, but you are right they can't really censor everything unless they become a totalitarian state. If it doesn't define world trade then we shouldn't worry about it, let them sort out their problem, I believe that this is going to be the same as what CBN did so I wouldn't worry that much.

The reason the Turkish central bank uses cryptocurrency is because they think that cryptocurrencies more profitable will improve their economy and trade a lot but it is very harmful for the poor people. They don't know anything about crypto and use Fiat currency online virtual currencies are being traded on various exchange platforms including Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple and Litcoin. These virtual currencies are not legal tender issued by the legitimate authorities of any country there is no recognition of any financial claim the central banks need to think about the people of the country before the state takes such a step.

Central banks don't understand the blockchain that is why they are saying blockchain network is in ban. ;D

Dump people are in control of a country's financial management is why many country never go in the growing direction. Anyway with this ban the p2p transactions will increase so the prices also may increase due to increased risk of trading on peer to peer so Holders will take more advantages while government lose their tax revenues.

People are holding right now, but what about the future?

Sure, people use it as a get rich quick type scheme, day trade, or treat it as an asset akin to gold or silver, but 5 years ago, people laughed at BTC as any sort of investment so it isn't unreasonable to think that down the line, it'd be used as a day to day currency. Plus, also consider that first world countries keep printing out bills of money as if it grows on trees, so at some point people are going to switch currencies when they realize their own country's currency has turn to rubbish due to inflation.

1.Nobody outside Turkey cares about the opinions of the Turkish central bank in regards to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.This news won't have an impact over the crypto markets.
2.Turkey is country,that has a very weak national currency.The Turkish central bankers are probably afraid that Turkey might become "the next Venezuela" and the people will dump the national currency for Bitcoin.
3.I guess that the Turkish central bank/government is in a "denial phase",when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
This is just a phase and the Turkish government might adopt crypto payments in the future.

 

Turkish central bank has issued a ban on using Bitcoin. They argue that there are many great risks for electronic money assets. Because encryption assets do not have to follow any management and monitoring mechanism, as well as not managed by central agencies. Market value of electronic money fluctuates excessively and they can be used for illegal operations such as money laundering. I wonder if this command gives a discount Bitcoin? There are all citizens in Turkey who will stop BTC.

blockchain technology is still new, it's natural that they still don't understand the benefits 'lol'...
taxes, taxes, and taxes, that's all they are really aiming for, without taxes they won't get their wages 'lol'. p2p trading will definitely be an option and let them bite their fingers for tax-loss 'lol'.

Uhh! I don't quite agree with you on this. Yes, it's true that people have changed a bit about cryptocurrencies but it's only because of profits that they are currently seeing due to the bull market. In the bear rally before this bull market, there weren't a lot of people investing in cryptos. Moreover using it as a currency is something altogether different and opposite. When you have entered into something with an idea that it's value will appreciate why would you decide to use it as a payment method?

Secondly, I am quite convinced with the fact that deflationary currency is not an answer to an inflationary currency. It's just trying things in a different way and not a solution at all. There are just theories around it so far.

The Turkish government banned Bitcoin and crypto as a payment method, but the citizens can still buy invest in crypto. So I don't think it's such a serious problem.

From OP ->


It seems to me that it was only a matter of time before a country like Turkey would make such a move, and it is possible that this is not the end, and that they just make a test balloon to feel the pulse of the nation. We all know how the 2016 coup attempt ended, and as a result, the Turkish authorities have become even more cautious and suspicious - and I believe that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies do not fit well into the existing system.

Anything that could in any way undermine the cohesion of the current politico-military system is basically undesirable - nothing we have not already seen in authoritarian regimes like China or Russia where Bitcoin has not fared well, or is still in the gray zone.

Regardless of the country's political problems, it is very clear that the Turkish government is running out of ways to solve the Crypto problem.  With the current policies, the Turkish Government has lost the great potential of Crypto.  If they take another policy by imposing all Crypto activities with KYC, and imposing taxes on all transactions then this is better than banning them.  Crypto volatility is nothing to worry about.  Just need a friendly policy.  Because the Crypto ban is not the end of its users.  There are many ways to keep investing in Crypto.

I think that it is necessary to take into account the decisiveness of the head of state Erdogan and his character, as well as ambitions in solving various problems. No discontent of the people will cope with this and therefore the problem must be solved only on the political plane. Erdogan positions himself with a democratic president and therefore he needs to provide real facts in favor of cryptocurrency so that the Turkish government changes its decision.

Crypto users residing in that country will always find a way how to get around with their government.
Because outside their jurisdiction, they can freely transact with crypto.
I don't think Turkey's Central Bank approach in crypto is a smart move from their end.
They can regulate the use of it and get the taxes, but totally banning it will just leave them behind on this technology.
While others are creating crypto-friendly cities, they are doing the opposite approach.

Spot on. The Turkish Lira (national currency) has been facing issues for sometime now, and therefore it was not surprising to see the central bank curbing the usage of other currencies. During the last four weeks, the currency has devalued by more than 10%. The government is also facing acute revenue shortage, due to the fall in tourist arrivals. Still I have to admit that the Turkish government acted in a very mature manner, when compared to their colleagues in India and Nigeria. 

Since, there are not many places that offer a service to be a middleman between a crypto payer and a fiat seller, that means there is not really that much of a problem. I mean how many companies there are in Turkey that allows people to use their services to pay crypto everywhere they go? Not much I suppose, so this doesn't really change anything.

I am fine with crypto not being a means of exchange as a service, that is understandable, if I can use it directly (which this law doesn't stop) that is enough for me, crypto should be accepted, not forced to people and that is why I think this is not bad, sure it would be better if it wasn't applied but it is not that bad when this happens neither. As long as crypto itself is not banned which obviously they won't ban, that is a good news, people really do love crypto in Turkey and that should continue as much as possible.

I think it have something to do with the government trying to increase the price of their currency since it seems the turkish currency (lira) has been going quite the down hill this month alone and maybe they thought the money is going out of their country and probably to cryptocurrency market and currently there's phenomenon that happens globally regarding the decrease of daily volume in stock market because most of people are just switching to cryptocurrency therefore a country with economy that's not so strong afraid of it affecting their country. Hopefully turkish people could still use P2P so the ban wont matters.

The Turkish lira has had big problems for years, have people forgotten what happened in 2018? It seems to me the matter was much more serious than today. Of course that year was very difficult for crypto as the long crypto winter began, and people were quite disappointed after the price started to fall sharply. Today, people see a way out and security in crypto, and people need to be controlled precisely through the monetary system and make them dependent on that system.


As you can see from the quotes above, the Turkish president and his methods have not pulled the country out of the crisis, and maybe the whole 2018 thing can happen again. As for India and Nigeria compared to Turkey, I would not agree that any of them did the right thing - because bans of any type will only produce a counter-effect, because people today have a window to the world (internet) and want their human rights - and they can rightly say that if something is completely normal in many countries of the world, why is it forbidden in our country?

As I have already written, restrictions of this type only occur in countries where human rights are still at a very low level.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Russia also implemented this similar ban to their citizens where they can’t exchange Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for purchasing goods and services (however trading is allowed). Even federal and government officials are ordered to dispose the cryptocurrencies that they own on or before April 1st 2021 to prevent corruption.

Transactions are irreversible, yes. It is difficult to request a refund once you have initiated a transaction. You would be lucky if the receiver is willing to send you a refund if something goes wrong with your purchase.

It is true that Russia adopts the same policies but is not as strict as Turkey's.  Russia clearly admits they ban Crypto but cannot really eliminate 100% of the crypto transactions in their country.  Because Bitcoin is still very popular with the people, it is even known that Putin's aides have crypto mining tools.  Turkey is currently still starting their policy and it looks quite tight due to lowering Crypto prices in the country.

I believe that the Turkish government makes a decision on cryptocurrencies precisely for the reason that Turkey is in a leading position along with the United States and India in the spread of coronavirus around the world. Their economy is in a very poor condition, while it should be borne in mind that the holiday season in Turkey will practically be closed, which means that the receipt of funds in the State Treasury will be almost critical. Since the government sees a large-scale leak of finance into the cryptocurrency, they accordingly took tough measures to reduce the damage.

I saw someone comment that they banned bitcoin because they are “afraid that they are going to be losing control, so they had no other option than to ban it’, so how does banning bitcoin help them to gain control over it ? They are not going to have any control, rather they stand to lose even more or total control of it.

If they don’t ban it, there will be some ways that they are going to be having control and that’s through centralized exchanges which they are going to be controlling. But right now, they are going to be forcing their citizens to go for peer to peer which is the same thing that happened with Nigeria when their central bank banned bitcoin and people quickly went into peer to peer which is totally out of control for their government.

This is just ridiculous. How can a ban on cryptocurrency help them with reduced tourist arrivals or a decrease in tax revenue? There is a very small correlation between cryptocurrency and these sectors. And the ban covers purchase of goods and services using cryptocurrency. And this is even stranger. You need to pay your taxes, irrespective of whether you are making the payment using the Turkish Lira, US Dollar or Bitcoin. So how this is going to help? If you claim that this measure was an attempt to prop up the Turkish Lira, then it would have been more understandable.

Unfortunately nations still blame crypto for things, they do not realize that it has been a problem in fiat world way before bitcoin was ever created. Turkish Lira had its problems 30 years ago as well, it has today too, banning crypto as a means of exchange will not solve it. The weird thing is, they did not ban crypto as a whole, you can still buy it, hold it, use it, spend it, you just can't use it as means of exchange and that's it, nothing more. That is why this could be one and only law making it illegal for its true purpose, otherwise as an asset it is still acceptable.

I do not really understand why it is like that, but it is really weird but definitely not as bad as it could be. I just think they believed people would stop using crypto this way and Lira would get more powerful but it is obvious that it is not true, in fact crypto helps more people than it hurts.

It is kind of an universal truth. Autocratic governments trying for "alternative economic theories" that spectacularly fail left with no other chance but to imprison their citizens finances to avoid a massive loss of capital. Not that they achieve anything really, particularly as the Turkish government has fired a few finance ministers that were trying to put in place the painful but now unavoidable painful measures.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56479702 (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56479702)

https://www.xm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/TRY-vs-USD-and-EUR.png

From time to time, the response of the world community to bitcoin is increasing. This is a fact. for some countries this is considered a threat, they are worried that the higher the investment value in bitcoin will reduce the level of investment in the real sector.
In my opinion, the state action that prohibits the use of digital transaction tools is counterproductive. They should take accommodative steps to make adjustments to respond to this excellent opportunity (bitcoin) so that a new, more flexible and independent financial mechanism will be created.
Sooner or later a new order of global transaction mechanism through bitcoin will materialize, so that there is no reason for unproductive prohibition.

Governments like the power.
They want to control their citizen trough the exercise of power that comes from the enslavement due to their government induced poverty.
So the only act of rebellion left to the citizen the self is the act of trying to grant the self freedom trough bitcoin, the Trojan hose of freedom.

I see... You mean the following Trojan Hose.
http://www.trojanco.com/
Am I right?  ;D ;D ;D
Sorry man, I couldn't resist! You obviously misspelled the words Trojan Horse but I couldn't stop laughin' for no reason.

Time to buy some more freedom chips, cause bitcoin is on the way down.

Grief NEWS FROM TURKEY. The right sentence for the world of cryptocurrency. The person who is suspected of committing fraud through Turkey's main crypto, Thodek is a bad signal that is counterproductive to the cryptocurrency world that highly values ​​trust. Trust in this business is the highest absolute that must be held fast. because what we're doing here really have to trust each other. with the Thodek case in Turkey, at least it has doubted our positive campaign about trust in digital transaction tools. I hope something like this will not happen again.

Good news from Turkey:

 Turkey’s Central Bank Head Says Crypto Regs Coming, Denies Total Ban Ahead (https://www.coindesk.com/turkeys-central-bank-head-says-crypto-regs-coming-denies-total-ban-ahead)

We can't say good news yet. They are notorious for choosing the worst option for people on everything, never trust this government and their institutions.
They have no idea how to handle this and they are saying in 2 weeks they will make a rulebook. We'll see whether if it's high tax policy or something else but trust me, nothing good comes out of this. :(

Well, that’s the second country I know of that have banned bitcoin this year. It seems it isn’t clear to them that they are not really stopping their citizens from HODL’ing bitcoin. People can still HODL bitcoin and they wouldn’t be aware of it, it’s hundred percent possible, but they don’t take that into consideration when they place a ban on Bitcoin that those people they are banning it for can still have access in some ways.

I think when governments decide to ban bitcoin they are the ones that are going to be losing in a situation like this, especially when there are well established businesses there that the government is benefiting from through taxes.

Kinda seems like the government is trying to cover up its tracks due to having failed to have some reasonable regulations for exchanges earlier. Now what they got were two scammy exchanges and now they act tough with the bans and arrests to show off as if they are doing something. Local exchanges have the tendency to either have security holes or being outright scams. It is tough to run a fully secure and legit business on a budget when starting up.

As to what was mentioned by the head of the Central Bank in Turkey, the total ban was not yet implemented nevertheless, this doesn't exclude us from the fact that they are trying to build up the country's main cryptocurrency which is Thodek. On the other hand, as the governmeny exercise their power towards the nation, sooner or later a lot of detrimental outcomes would show up as they make the wrong decisions for their country. Also, we have no idea if they are secretly investing the asset of the country in crypto that's why they are doing those unnecessary actions which clearly doesn't make sense.

The first pages of this thread were the: "How it is started" part of the story.

Now there is the "How is it going?"

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/15/blobffad5ccab33ba7c7.jpeg (https://twitter.com/cryptounfolded/status/1481306007942877186?s=20)

One excerpt from the article (https://archive.ph/U49YF):


Basically: Bitcoin fixes this.