President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has appointed Professor Fatma Ozkul, an expert in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, as a member of 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, focusing academically on accounting, finance, and auditing. Her expertise extends to blockchain technology and digital assets, evident in her 2022 book on cryptocurrency accounting. In her new role on the Turkish central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, Ozkul will contribute to determining interest rates to impact inflation. The committee recently raised interest rates by 2.5 percentage points to 42.5% on December 21, responding to the November inflation peak of 61.98%.
Following the victory in the general election in May, Erdogan assembled a new economic team, with Hafize Gaye Erkan, a former Goldman Sachs banker, serving as the governor of the central bank. The central bank successfully tested a digital currency, the Digital Turkish Lira, in 2022.
Cryptocurrency is gaining popularity in Turkey, 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, trailing behind only 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 remove the country from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list.” The forthcoming regulations will include licensing requirements addressing system abuse, covering aspects such as capital adequacy, digital security, custodian services, and reserve verification.
