Turkey Outlaws Cryptocurrency Payments
Battle lines are firmly drawn in Turkey over crypto payments as confidence in its fiat currency drops.
Full Stack
Battle lines are firmly drawn in Turkey over crypto payments as confidence in its fiat currency drops.
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Resmî Gazete, known colloquially as the Official Gazette or T.C. Resmî Gazete, is Turkey’s state media organ for publishing official announcements.
On 16 April 2021, announcement number 31456 included regulation from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT). In six relatively concise Articles, “NON-USE OF KRYPTO ASSETS IN PAYMENTS REGULATION” insisted cryptocurrencies “may not be used directly or indirectly for payments” as of 30 April 2021.
Furthermore, “No services may be provided for the direct or indirect use of crypto assets in payments. No use of crypto assets in the provision of payment services and the issuance of electronic money,” the CBRT stressed.
For good measure in case there might be ambiguity or wiggle room, the missive included a ban on payment service provides who “may not develop business models or provide any services related to such business models in a way that crypto assets are used directly or indirectly in the provision of payment services and the issuance of electronic money. Payment and electronic money institutions may not [mediate] the transfer of funds to or from platforms that provide trading, storage, transfer or issuance services related to crypto assets.”
Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu tweeted in response, “I met with different stakeholders all day. Blockchain and crypto are the only areas where our $ 1 billion (Unicorn) ventures will emerge. [Turkey unfairly] hit financial technology startups. They have no tolerance for young people. No no no!”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become increasingly desperate to buttress confidence in the Turkish Lira especially as the country’s street is widely viewed as crypto crazy. Trading volume rose to $27 billion last month. Erdoğan’s recent sacking of the CBRT head didn’t help matters, plunging lira by low double digits on the firing’s news.
Quick Bites
Coinbase Direct Nasdaq Listing Goes Live
Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong now ranks #175 on the Bloomberg Billionaires index, with a fortune estimated at $12.4 billion. Thanks, of course, in large part to a successful Nasdaq listing this week of Coinbase Global, Inc. Class A Common Stock (COIN), the notoriously private Armstrong is getting a lot of new attention. With a focus on Armstrong and Coinbase, however, comes a renewed interest in cryptocurrency generally and begrudgingly acknowledgement by legacy finance crypto is here to stay.
Decentralized Cross-Chain Trading
Meanwhile, crypto exchange ShapeShift launched decentralized trading on their platform, “like Uniswap, but multi-chain.” Their “decentralized exchange mobile platform is now fully integrated with THORChain,” the company announced, “enabling users for the first time to trade native (unwrapped) bitcoin with litecoin and ethereum.”
CEO Erik Voorhees cheered, “Behold... this has never been done before. Native (unwrapped) #Ethereum in Native (unwrapped) #Bitcoin out. $5,000 trade. No intermediary. No custody. No KYC.”
Welcome to the new decentralized world.
WallStreetBets Giveth, WallStreetBets Taketh Away
Popular trading subreddit WallStreetBets had a notorious bias against cryptocurrency trading-related posts. It would routinely ban discussion of cryptos, often unironically criticizing supposed Ponzi aspects among a litany of well-worn tropes. With Coinbase going public, however, mood seemed to soften, and a few posts about Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin were allowed. And then, just as quickly as the ban lifted, it was reinstated. “Due to the article that was written @bloomberg,” a moderator howled, “who somehow felt that "WallStreetBets Bows to Crypto" Crypto discussion is banned indefinitely. I've read a lot of dumb articles written about wsb. This one takes the cake.”
Taproot Speedy Trial Launches
Bitcoin developer David A. Harding’s Taproot activation proposal "Speedy Trial" merged into Core code this week, readying toward a May 2021 release. Once fully online, it would enable Schnorr signatures for greater smart contracting capability. Speedy Trial is something of a compromise after months of debate resulting in a thud of inactivity on the issue. Under Speedy Trial, Taproot has essentially a three month duration to activate upon miner signalling. Should miners reject Taproot after that period, Bitcoin devs believe not much would be lost in terms of debate time and energy.
New Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Confirmed
Nikhilesh De of Coindesk announced, “It’s official: Gary Gensler is the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after a 53-45 vote by the U.S. Senate” this week. Gensler’s CV includes a stint as head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have brought new thinking to payments and financial inclusion, but they’ve also raised new issues of investor protection that we still need to attend to,” De quoted Gensler during a hearing last month. “If confirmed at the SEC, I’d work with fellow commissioners to both promote the new innovation, but also at the core to ensure investor protection.” The new SEC chief’s plate is full when it comes to crypto, from an ongoing lawsuit against Ripple, the never-ending quest to approve a Bitcoin ETF, to a more recent complaint against decentralized media platform LBRY. (You can sign the petition to support LBRY’s fight here)
By C. Edward Kelso, NBTV contributor.
Find more of Kelso’s work here: @coinfugazi / coinfugazi.com