Bitcoin Forum

https://news.bitcoin.com/turkey-prepares-new-crypto-law-to-align-with-international-standards/
"Turkey is preparing to present a new law to regulate crypto assets to Parliament. The legislation, aimed at aligning with international standards and reducing risks associated with crypto transactions, will enforce strict regulations on the licensing and operation of cryptocurrency trading platforms by the Capital Markets Board. It will also ensure the safe custody of assets, establish transparent platform-customer relationships, and specify sanctions for non-compliance. The draft legislation is expected to be submitted to Parliament within a week. This initiative, strongly endorsed by Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, seeks to remove Turkey from a financial crime watchdog’s “gray list” and enhance its standing under the Financial Action Task Force’s standards."

Somehow I feel like we were in a better position when there were no regulations for crypto. Nowadays whenever I hear about a new regulation, it usually means it is going to be harder to use/trade crypto or you will pay more taxes.

I decided to use my crypto coins without using an exchange or any other business which is strictly regulated by the government because of that. I’ll either use giftcard sellers like bitrefill or other business (like namecheap) that accept crypto directly, or I will just make p2p trades.

These centralized exchanges will and should suffer from these regulations. It is time for everyone to move their business to a real decentralized exchange, bisq. Let’s see what the gov can do about that.

There are still a few decent non-KYC CEXes. Sooner or later the governments will ruin those decent exchanges by forcing them require KYC, but until then it probably makes sense to use them at least in some cases.

I'm quite surprised it took them this long to act for something that happened roughly two and a half years ago... Regardless of that, following the FATF's guidelines ^{[e.g. travel rule]} equates to automatically pushing out a lot of their users into decentralized platforms and that'd normally lead to more problems for their government ^{[e.g. endless game of cat and mouse]}.

Which essentially means, Turkey is going to implement a stricter Anti Money Laundering Act on crypto transactions and probably ban all non-kyc exchanges from the country.

Whenever some countries talk about following the international standard, it usually starts with taking away the financial freedom of the crypto users and forcing them to report every transactions to the government so that they can be taxed appropriately.

Let's wait for the finalized draft of the law. But unless something shocking happens, Turkish users should start expecting to follow a strict rules regarding crypto transactions.

Turkey has been seeking for years to join NATO and the European Union, and therefore it will do everything necessary to not be included in the “gray list” for monitoring financial crimes, which will certainly be a major stumbling block on the way to joining the European Union, which it has dreamed of for years.

I believe that this “gray list” will force many countries other than Turkey to establish more stringent regulatory laws for cryptocurrencies and everything related to them in order to avoid being placed on the list by the United States and Europe.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_191048.htm

What have you been drinking? Türkiye has been a NATO member for decades, probably one of the oldest members of NATO. (since 1952) Yes Türkiye want to get in the EU but people slowly realize that it is never going to happen.

Getting out of gray list is an important task though. We should definitely handle that asap but I don't have high hopes because it is the current government who invited all that criminals and their money to the country to prevent us from going bankrupt.

I was drinking milk!!! ;D

Sorry, this is a mistake on my part. You are right. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, but it seeks to join the European Union and did not obtain approval. I was a little hasty in writing and did not pay attention to that. Thank you for correcting me.

A pretty good time to be starting point for establishing informal ways that you can do P2P transactions, that way you don't have to be so worried about your crypto being stuck as a cryptocurrency and that you can still benefit from profiting from it. Hopefully this kind of thing won't happen fast as even if it's inevitable, you can still get the most out of it. When this kind of thing happens, I just mostly think to myself that if worst thing happened and I have to comply with the KYC, I just hope that I wouldn't be targeted and that I'm not really doing anything illegal at all so I can argue that in a KYC exchange, nothing suspicious will arise out of my account.

Of course. But that was because first because technology is ahead of legislation, and then because when it was a novelty and Bitcoin had a small market cap it didn't attract much attention from politicians either. As it started to attract massive amounts of money, regulation was inevitable.

Something similar happened with the first fiat gambling on the internet. And it still happens to some extent with crypto gambling but we see the trend, to more and more KYC.

It doesn't seem to me that Türkiye is doing this because of anyone else, but only to be able to control money flows even more effectively and prevent the financing of all those things that are a problem for them. It is no secret that there are many Turks outside of Türkiye who are not satisfied with the regime, and the authorities certainly do not want a repeat of the coup attempt from a few years ago.

As for Türkiye  and the EU, I think that this is a story that will continue for a very long time, because in general, that country is still quite far from what the EU is looking for in order to become a member state. Maybe it's not even that bad for that country, because by joining such a community, you often lose a lot more than you gain.

For the time being, crypto-to-crypto trades are not that difficult because we still have the no-KYC CEX exchanges and DEX exchanges. Obviously CEX exchanges give better liquidity and better prices, while DEX exchanges have lower risk of the crypto being locked for non-compliance with different regulations.

For the crypto-to-fiat trades it is more difficult. The only kind of trade that does not (or at least should not) leave a paper trail and leaves a small electronic trail is when the two parties meet face-to-face and side A gives side B cash and side B transfers the crypto to side A, possibly through some escrow service. The second-best option are  the no-KYC crypto ATMs, but their number is decreasing and in 2-3 years I think almost all of them will be gone. And they are more expensive than face-to-face trades.

I think that face-to-face trades will become quite popular when everything gets regulated, but they have their own risks (the famous five-dollar wrench attack). Also the earlier one starts establishing personal contacts with reliable people, the easier it will be to do the face-to-face trades. Then again, finding reliable people is not an easy task in and of itself given the amount of fraud in crypto land.

I have not read the bill, but if we analyze the information from the announcement, Turkey also wants the country to keep up with other European countries in this area.
But the question always remains in the implementation of legislation.
My friends there are buying apartments and building real estate. The country has high taxes, and therefore, when selling, the value of real estate is often underestimated.
In Russia it is prohibited to pay with cryptocurrencies. This doesn’t stop anyone in Russia. Large wholesale markets for goods from China have huge volumes - billions of rubles every day in stablecoins at the exchange rate.

Türkiye has indeed a very vibrant real estate market. The beaches are mostly clean and the sun is mostly shining in the summers. The prices of consumer goods are going nuts lately even against the dollar but the foreigners still can't have enough of Türkiye. I've seen many US, English and German citizens that are living their retirement here in Türkiye. Some even say it is cheaper to live in a nice all-inclusive hotel in Türkiye than living in their home in their home country. Ukrainians and Russians like the southern parts of the country too. I mean who doesn't? The beaches have the most beautiful combination of blue green and yellow you can see in your life.

Maybe the country will join the EU in the future. I know it is unlikely but I am fine even if we don't. As long as the economy is good and I am making money, I don't really care.

The EU is a community of heavily indebted countries, sponsored mainly by France and Germany. All markets are already occupied and there is very high competition there. It is beneficial to join this union at the beginning in order to take its share of the market, but now it is beneficial only for a poor country to join it. Many Western European countries are members of the EU because they receive cheap loans and a lot of money for “democratic reforms.”
If the money stops being allocated, this union will quickly fall apart.

Turkey was placed on the gray list of FATAF (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/finance-watchdog-visited-turkey-ahead-grey-list-decision-sources-say-2024-05-07/#:~:text=The%20FATF%20grey%20listed%20Turkey,on%20the%20FATF's%20grey%20list.) because they were unable to supervise/control the following businesses:
1. Banks
2. Real estate
3. Financing designated terrorist groups by the UN
3. Other vulnerable sectors to money laundering (this might be the reason they are now regulating the cryptocurrency sector.)

In 2021, they were added to the grey list and are now in the process of creating a new crypto law. With their fiat currencies losing value, likely, many citizens have already switched from fiat to cryptocurrencies. This could be another reason for their decision to introduce new legislation. I feel we were far much better before countries decided to regulate cryptocurrencies which was never meant to be regulated.

Payment with cryptocurrencies is also prohibited in Türkiye (unless something has changed in the last few months), but one forum member confirmed that this does not prevent shops and restaurants from accepting cryptocurrencies - which means that the law exists only on paper. However, people will always find a way to trade - and why not by paying in cryptocurrencies if they already exist.

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Not everything is as dark as you write, but I understand that there is a big influence of what your media puts into the public because of the war in Ukraine. Despite everything, the EU is holding up very well, and it is not quite right to say that it is only held together by money.

That's true for almost every law in Türkiye which can be good or bad depending on the situation I guess. Unless somebody files a complaint, nobody cares.

A few days ago, some German tourist who took the crosswalk was run over by a friggin truck. (r.i.p.) People who came from Europe to Türkiye might find it weird but nobody gives a shit about crosswalk here. Actually when people see a crosswalk they usually act like cars have a priority over the pedestrians  :P That's why many Turkish people who go for a vacation to Europe have a mindfuck till they figure out what crosswalk was about. If you ever see a pedestrian in EU who is waiting on the crosswalk for the car to move, he/she is probably Turkish.

You are right that in Turkey the cryptocurrency law exists only on paper. I have already realized why there is no such law in Russia :)

You don't have to say that I have a negative attitude towards Europe. Europe has always had countries with deficit budgets, and now these countries have been deprived of cheap gas and other raw materials. In a market economy it will be hard for these countries without cheap loans and support.

I think there are several reasons why Turkey drafted this law. Firstly to protect against fraud and market manipulation, secondly to ensure crypto trading is not used for illegal activities such as money laundering and terrorism financing. As far as I know, previously Turkey already had several crypto regulations. These regulations include obligations for crypto exchanges to register with the government and comply with anti money laundering (AML) and counter financing terrorism (CFT) regulations. However, this regulation does not regulate crypto trading in detail, such as trading mechanisms, investor protection, and taxation. So a new crypto law was created that regulates it in more detail. Moreover, this is also an effort to get Turkey off the gray list of financial crime watchdogs.

If you read the whole thing, you would never be speculating for the reasons why they drafted this law, although I can see that it's the same thing as the real reason. It's always been the case with this kind of events or legislations, they want to make something clear so they can properly uphold the law. I feel like the other reason why they want to get out of the gray list is probably because they're planning something that would involve some big spending and they probably want to ask for a really big loan to fund those big spending projects, I just hope that the Turkish masses would benefit in all of those motives. I hope that more countries would follow what Turkey's doing right now, cryptocurrency adoption is an inevitable thing, it's more expensive and tiring for most government to stop them rather than adapt to the changes.

You cannot escape from what you are, and that is to repeat the same things that your politicians persistently repeat - and that is that the EU will fail because there is no cheap oil, gas or anything else from Russia. But no one in the EU has frozen, no one drives cars less than before and no one is too affected by the lack of trade with Russia. In addition, there is enough money - since the beginning of your country's aggression against Ukraine, the EU has sent aid of more than EUR 88 billion and the aid will continue to arrive in the future because the average person understands that the EU is defending itself in Ukraine.

Regarding laws, I also have laws in my country that are supposed to prevent money laundering, but that doesn't stop anyone from buying and selling cryptocurrencies without KYC completely legally in physical exchanges. Laws are often just a dead letter on paper.

Any attempts to talk about the economy you try to lead into a discussion of the war. I'm not saying Europe will freeze or people will stop driving cars. Europe will start to lose markets and production because in a competitive world you need cheap resources. You don't want to realize that the purpose of this war is to weaken Europe's economic influence. That's one of the goals of the United States.

I'm talking about the economy. Many European experts said that Russia's economy would collapse. But the paradox is that Russia's economy is much better now than it was before the special military operation.

If you want to believe in fairy tales told to you by someone who sends hundreds of people to their deaths every day, then that is your choice and the majority of your people. The Russian economy is kept afloat precisely because of the war machinery that functions according to war standards - and you still call the occupation of an independently recognized country a "special military operation" that lasts more than 2 years - it is not a military operation at all, but a brutal bloody war with the aim of conquering territory and ethical cleansing.

A bloody economy is not something to be proud of - what a smart man is ashamed of, a fool is proud of - so says an old saying.

Bruh the US’s own economy mostly depends on arms manufacturing. When the US is the biggest arms dealer of the world and created many fake wars in the middle east to sell guns, excuse me but wtf are you talking about? You don’t think the US sells all those guns, missiles and helicopters to sit in the hangars do you?

The way I see it, The US wanted another war in the north and they got one. Russia is getting richer, the US is getting richer, the Ukrainans are dying and the Europeans are getting poorer. Looks like everyone is happy. (Except for the Ukrainians)

What are you proud of?
Americans have been sponsoring wars around the world for years.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5441385

The high standard of living in the major European countries was high because they colonized half the world and lived off of it. You also want to divide Russia into small countries and live off that. Not you personally, your politicians say that. There are dozens of other wars going on in the world in parallel with more horrible losses, but you only blame Russia.