Crypto fever is palpable in Istanbul. The area around the Grand Bazaar hosts several small businesses where you can just walk in and exchange cash for bitcoin (BTC) or tether (USDT). My colleague said the first thing she saw at Istanbul airport was a huge crypto ad. There are at least 8 million people in Turkey engaged in crypto, according to an estimate in a 2022 research report by the Turkish crypto exchange Paribu, one of the largest crypto exchanges in Turkey. Just last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted the benefits of blockchain technology, while advising young people to stay away from gambling with cryptocurrency. He also said that Turkey wanted to be a producer, not a consumer, in the digital assets world.
