President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has appointed Professor Fatma Ozkul, an expert in cryptocurrency and blockchain expertise, as a member of the central bank’s financial coverage committee. This text explores the the explanation why this appointment is especially bullish for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
Since 2012, Ozkul has been related to Marmara College in Istanbul, focusing academically on accounting, finance, and auditing. Her experience extends to blockchain expertise and digital belongings, evident in her 2022 e book on cryptocurrency accounting. In her new function on the Turkish central bank’s Financial Coverage Committee, Ozkul will contribute to figuring out rates of interest to affect inflation. The committee just lately raised rates of interest by 2.5 share factors to 42.5% on December 21, responding to the November inflation peak of 61.98%.
Following the victory in the final election in Might, Erdogan assembled a brand new financial crew, with Hafize Gaye Erkan, a former Goldman Sachs banker, serving because the governor of the central bank. The central bank efficiently examined a digital foreign money, the Digital Turkish Lira, in 2022.
Cryptocurrency is gaining recognition in Turkey, partly influenced by the financial state of affairs. In accordance to Chainalysis, Turkey ranks fourth globally in phrases of crypto transaction quantity, with roughly $170 billion in exercise between July 2022 and June 2023, trailing behind solely the US, India, and the UK.
In response to the surge in transactions, Turkish authorities plan to regulate the crypto market, aiming to license and tax it to take away the nation from the Monetary Motion Process Power (FATF) “gray checklist.” The forthcoming rules will embrace licensing necessities addressing system abuse, protecting facets akin to capital adequacy, digital safety, custodian companies, and reserve verification.