In a last-ditch effort to stop Turkish citizens from fleeing the lira and finding protection elsewhere, President Erdoğan has tried, on multiple occasions, to encourage them to hold on to their freefalling liras in the name of national pride.
The government recently announced a new gold conversion deposit account that promises “risk-free income” in order to encourage people to bring their “under-the-mattress” gold into the banking system.
Erdoğan is now blaming inflation, not on his policies, but rather “foreign financial tools” and bad statistics. Erdoğan recently fired the president of the Turkish Statistical Institute after his statistical analysis showed inflation was still on the rise.
We haven’t seen a country with an economy of this size go through a currency crisis like this in a long time, and we definitely haven’t seen a fiat currency of this size inflate like this in Bitcoin’s lifetime.
Turkey has a population of around 84 million people. It is the 21st largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP, and the 11th largest economy in terms of GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP).
Grocery prices are rising almost daily, forcing grocery store chains to put quotas on items like flour, oil and milk.
Restaurants in Turkey for the first time started requiring a minimum dollar amount before customers were allowed to sit down and also started charging customers by the hour to use a heating lamp due to the rising energy costs.
The poll results were the following:
39.6% said they would invest in gold
18.9% said they would hold dollars
14.3% said they would hold cryptocurrencies
However, one of the most interesting developments throughout this inflationary episode is that Turks are turning more and more towards bitcoin as a way to preserve their wealth against their currency’s debasement.
Fast-forward to today, and it appears the Turkish president might already be waving the white flag in his war against bitcoin. After El Salvador President Nayib Bukelye visited with the Turkish President back in January, President Erdoğan advised the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party to closely examine bitcoin’s potential use and to organize an upcoming forum on the subject.
Now that we’ve entered the age of Bitcoin, citizens all over the world have an alternative to turn to in order to protect their wealth against the detrimental effects of inflation.