One of Turkey’s oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, BtcTurk, may soon be taken over by Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States by trading volume.
BtcTurk is one of the most valuable crypto exchanges in the country, with 4.5 million users.
Coinbase is opening up in all jurisdictions where cryptocurrency is legal, the company has said in the past. In March, Coinbase opened talks for a $2.1 billion acquisition of 2TM, the parent company of Brazil’s largest crypto exchange, Mercado Bitcoin.
However, Coinbase is not expected to sign a deal until the end of the month for BtcTurk, according to sources interviewed by Bloomberg. The company was still doing due diligence checks after signing a term sheet. It is possible that part of the deal will involve a “share swap”, Bloomberg reported.
It is no surprise that Coinbase wants to further conquer the Turkish market. The depreciation of the Turkish lira has prompted millions of Turkish citizens to invest in cryptocurrencies during the pandemic. Last year, Turkey saw over a million cryptocurrency transactions per day, and billboards and advertisements for crypto are ubiquitous across the country. “In the past, it was dollarization, which meant that to avoid fluctuations in their currency, people kept their assets in dollars,” said Turan Sert, adviser to Paribu, the largest online crypto exchange in China. Turkey. AlJazeera. “Now the recent trend is called cryptolization.”
Turks are also heavily invested in the metaverse, with citizens spending millions on virtual lands in the VR space.
Despite this, Turkish politicians have been hesitant to fully embrace cryptomania. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan previously said that Turkey has “absolutely no intention of adopting cryptocurrencies”. Instead, he said, Turkey preferred to “go ahead with our own currency which has its own identity”.
Last April, Turkey’s central bank also instituted a ban on the use of crypto for traditional goods and services, citing “irreparable” damage associated with high risks in transactions. “Their use in payments may result in irrecoverable losses for parties to transactions…and include elements that could undermine confidence in the methods and instruments currently used in payments,” the central bank said.
Last April, Thodex and Vebitcoin – two prominent Turkish cryptocurrency exchanges – also crashed, wiping out the assets of hundreds of thousands of users.
Despite this uncertain regulatory environment, other crypto behemoths like Binance, OKX, and Bybit have also entered the Turkish crypto industry, eager to capitalize on the growing interest in crypto. However, it has not always been easy. Last December, Binance was fined 8 million lira ($751,314) for numerous violations.
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