Markets
Is Binance Planning to Leave the Turkish Market?
Five days after the Turkish parliament passed a new cryptocurrency regulation bill, Binance Global announced changes to its services in Turkey. Binance’s announcement titled “Updates to Binance Services in Turkey Based on New Cryptocurrency Regulations” stated that Binance.com will remain accessible to Turkish users, however the Turkish language will be disabled for the next three months.
Turkish Cryptocurrency Regulation
According to the new cryptocurrency regulation bill, cryptocurrency service providers must obtain a license from the Capital Markets Board (SPK) in order to establish or start operations in the country. The law mandates that individuals and officers of legal entities found operating as cryptocurrency service providers without a license will face a prison sentence of three to five years and a judicial fine ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 days.
Any service provider found to be stealing money or cryptocurrencies will face a prison sentence of 8 to 14 years and court fines of up to 5,000 days and will have to pay damages. The country does not yet have any kind of regulation regarding cryptocurrency taxation and the issue will be addressed by a separate law or regulation in the near future.
Cryptocurrency Scope in Turkish Market
According to HedgewithCrypto, the cryptocurrency adoption rate in Turkey has doubled in the past 3 years, from 16% of the population holding cryptocurrency to 40%, making Turkey one of the countries with the highest cryptocurrency adoption rates. One estimate says that two out of five Turkish citizens hold cryptocurrency.
CoinMarketCap data shows that over the past 24 hours, trading volume on Binance TR was $201.2 million. Internal trading data on Binance shows that in September 2023, the Turkish lira ranked first among fiat trading pairs on the entire exchange, accounting for a staggering 75%.
Chainanalysis released a report in March 2024, in which it placed Turkey at the 10th place among the countries that earned profits from cryptocurrencies in the year 2023. Turkey earned an estimated $0.95 billion.
Source: Chainanalysis
What to expect?
The real reasons behind Binance’s move are still unclear, however there are some speculations that Binance is planning to withdraw from the Turkish market. Turkey’s cryptocurrency regulations suggest that platforms that do not require SPK licenses should cease their operations and make a decision to liquidate within three months.