With the Turkish lira extending its decline on Monday after falling more than 20% against the US dollar last week, more and more Turkish citizens are looking for Bitcoin as a way to hedge against the collapse of the currency.
The most recent reductions for the Turkish lira came as a result of a trade dispute with US President Donald Trump, who on Friday announced via Twitter that he had "authorized a doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum with respect to Turkey. "
As the two governments fight for sanctions and trade tariffs, ordinary citizens, however, are forced to look for ways to preserve the money they have saved.
A user of Reddit, supposedly from Turkey, wrote that Bitcoin awareness is now spreading rapidly in Turkey, and that online discussion forums that used to deal with dollar exchange rates are increasingly used to spread the charts of Bitcoin and investment ideas.
However, the same user added that the Turks still need to obtain more information on the subject, and suggested that campaigns on social networks aimed at increasing knowledge about Bitcoin in the country could be very effective.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the Turkish Bitcoin exchange BTCTurk has seen an increase in transaction volume of 110% in the last seven days, while the local competitor Paribu has risen approximately 125% over the same period of time.
Measured in the Turkish lira, Bitcoin has gained approximately 65% since it hit bottom at the end of June, with the biggest increases seen in recent days, according to the Bitfinex price data. And with the lira continuing to spiral downward, it is likely that the trend of more Turkish currencies becoming bitcoins will continue.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during the weekend, optimistically asked the citizens of his country to convert US dollars and gold into Turkish Lira as soon as possible to help the deterioration of the situation of the country's currency.
Change the euros, the dollars and the gold that you have under your pillows to the lira in our banks. This is a national and domestic struggle, Erdogan said, referring to US tariffs as an "economic war."
However, aside from telling citizens that the United States has "its dollars" and we have "our god", Erdogan offered few guarantees to people who wonder why they should choose to keep a currency that depreciated by approximately 45% to the US dollar since the beginning of the year.
Fortunately for many people in Turkey, Turkish banks still accept transactions with Bitcoin exchanges, which means that the cryptocurrency can be purchased in local currency in online exchanges. This differs from the situation in Iran, China and other countries where the cryptocurrency trade can occur through point-to-point markets such as LocalBitcoins due to government restrictions.