Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed Professor Fatma Ozkul, an expert in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, to the central bank's monetary policy committee. This article explores the reasons why this appointment is particularly bullish for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
Since 2012, Ozkul has been associated with Marmara University in Istanbul, academically focusing on accounting, finance and auditing. His expertise extends to blockchain technology and digital assets, as evident from his 2022 book on cryptocurrency accounting. In his new role on the Turkish central bank's Monetary Policy Committee, Ozkul will help determine interest rates to impact inflation. The committee recently raised interest rates by 2.5 percentage points to 42.5% on December 21, in response to November's inflation spike of 61.98%.
Following victory in May's general election, Erdogan assembled a new economic team, with Hafize Gaye Erkan, a former Goldman Sachs banker, as central bank governor. The central bank successfully tested a digital currency, the digital Turkish lira, in 2022.
Cryptocurrency is gaining popularity in Tรผrkiye, partly influenced by the economic situation. According to Chainalysis, Turkey ranks fourth globally in terms of crypto transaction volume, with approximately $170 billion in activity between July 2022 and June 2023, behind only the United States, India, and the United Kingdom.
In response to the increase in transactions, Turkish authorities plan to regulate the cryptocurrency market, with the aim of licensing and taxing it to remove the country from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) โgrey list.โ The upcoming regulations will include licensing requirements that address abuse of the system, covering aspects such as capital adequacy, digital security, custody services and reserve verification.
