Turkey Becomes a Driving Force in Cryptocurrency Adoption

As part of the research, a total of 15,000 European citizens were interviewed. The results showed position Turkey is at the top with 18 percent, followed by Romania with 12 percent.

In recent years, 11 percent of Polish people and 10 percent of the Spanish have purchased cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin.

In August, Turkey received sanctions from the US government, which had a negative impact on the region. The Turkish national currency – lira, fell by more than 50 percent against the USD. Merchants in Turkey are losing holdings because of their continuing conflicts with the United States.

The feud only deepened after the government of Turkey refused to release pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained in 2016 during the protests against the country’s leader - Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He faced charges of espionage and links to terrorist groups. Recently, Brunson was moved to a house arrest because of health issues.

The sudden decrease in the lira’s value affected the pockets of Turkish citizens. For example, a local jeweler Cahit Bas recorded an immense loss of approximately 1 million lire, which is about $ 350,000 – all because of the US-Turkish conflict.

After the Turkish government increased control over the lira and tightened the financial freedom of its inhabitants, the interest in cryptocurrencies began to grow.

Germany announced that it plans to develop a financial system separate from the US. The SWIFT banking system has isolated countries like Iran and Turkey for many years.

The German foreign minister - Heiko Mass, shared his opinion that it is of crucial importance for Europe to gain autonomy by building independent payment channels.