Turkey: The Country Where Crypto Exchanges Are Beating the Bear Market

Y Cheung, head of operations at the global crypto exchange OKEx, told CoinDesk that over 30,000 Turkish users signed up for the platform since it expanded services to Turkey on March 26.

Turkey's growth as a leading bitcoin market is supported by other data as well.

According to BtcTurk CEO Ozgur Guneri, inflation is slowly, yet consistently, driving Turkish demand for bitcoin.

A survey conducted in April 2018 by the media arm of ING Bank found that Turkey already had the highest percentage of bitcoin holders in Europe, with 18 percent of Turkish respondents saying they own cryptocurrency.

Fluctuating inflation has been a primary driver of crypto adoption among Turkish traders, Guneri said.

"The volatility of the Turkish lira is quite high and couple that with the price of bitcoin and we have a market that is illiquid enough that sometimes there are inefficiencies that you can benefit from. Yet we are liquid enough for institutional investors to operate."

Due to Turkish exchanges' strict listing and on-boarding policies mandated by relationships with local banks, many traders acquire their first bitcoin domestically then send the digital loot to global exchanges with a wider range of trading pairs and fiat liquidity options.

"Some users can increase their investments in bitcoin during the volatile periods of the Turkish lira," Turkish vlogger Alp Işık told CoinDesk.

"Turkish users generally use local exchanges as a gateway to foreign exchanges."

All things considered, Işık and Guneri both see crypto adoption continuing on a steady upward slope, correlated with volatility for both the lira and bitcoin.