The Turkish government plans to establish a central depository bank to eliminate counterparty risk in transactions with cryptoassets, as well as introduce capital requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to Bloomberg, citing a senior official familiar with the plans of the Turkish government, lawmakers plan to introduce new rules for participants in the cryptocurrency industry. The source announced the government’s plans to create a central custodian bank to eliminate counterparty risk following the collapse of two cryptocurrency exchanges last week.
Turkish authorities are also considering setting capital thresholds for cryptocurrency exchanges and education requirements for CEOs. Information about the upcoming regulation appeared a few days after the chairman of the Central Bank of Turkey ruled out the possibility of a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in the country and announced that a wide range of rules for the industry would be presented within two weeks.
These comments were made a few days before the ban on the use of cryptocurrencies for payments in Turkey is due to take effect. The ban, which was introduced in response to a sharp rise in the use of cryptocurrencies in the country due to the fall of the lira, has sparked protests from political opponents of the government.
It is almost impossible to completely ban cryptocurrency in Turkey. Local media report that in early 2021, in parallel with the rise in the price of BTC, the trading volume of the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the country – Paribu and BtcTurk – exceeded $ 1 billion daily.According to local reports, the total cryptocurrency trading volume in January was about 25% of the volume trading on the Istanbul Stock Exchange.
Recall that last week the Turkish police began to investigate the activities of the Thodex exchange, which stopped working after the flight of the founder. In addition, the other day, employees of the Turkish exchange Vebitcoin were arrested on suspicion of fraud.
