Crypto fever is palpable in Istanbul. The realm across the Grand Bazaar hosts a number of small companies the place you may simply stroll in and trade money for bitcoin (BTC) or tether (USDT). My colleague mentioned the very first thing she noticed at Istanbul airport was an enormous crypto advert. There are at the very least 8 million folks in Turkey engaged in crypto, in accordance with an estimate in a 2022 analysis report by the Turkish crypto trade Paribu, one of many largest crypto exchanges in Turkey. Simply final week, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted the advantages of blockchain expertise, whereas advising younger folks to steer clear of playing with cryptocurrency. He additionally mentioned that Turkey needed to be a producer, not a shopper, within the digital property world.