Turkish Lira Tops Fiat Volumes in September as Adoption Grows: Binance Research

The Turkish Lira (TRY) leads the chart as the top fiat traded on the world’s largest exchange by volume, Binance following a surge in the number of investors, new research shows.

A new Binance market research shows an increasing vol trading volume around the Lira in September accounting for 75% of all fiat volumes on the exchange following new adoption appetite from new and experienced users.

The exchange researched the Turkish market to determine investor sentiment, drive, and levels of experience as more traction gets recorded. It should be noted in the last three years, Turkey’s crypto adoption rate has skyrocketed from 16%- to 40% sitting at the 12th spot on the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index 2023.

Per the survey, 30% of participants started trading 1-2 years ago while 19% and 8% began in the last year and six months respectively. In all, analysts at the company marked 27% as new entrants following new developments in the local market.

These new users recording trading activities have shot up the trading pair making it the most ranked in September and trickling into recent weeks.

Young digital asset users in the country have various motivations for trading and investing on the market with a majority also eyeing real estate investments from their proceeds. A large percentage of users have at least $175 (5,000 TRY) in their wallets.

While profits remain the largest factor (66%), the research shows other driving forces like low transaction cost (33%), ease of monitoring (56%), and love for the underlying technology (40%).

Other motives include security and the absence of minimum deposits which remains unavailable in most traditional investment schemes.

Turkey’s crypto landscape

The country is hailed as a growing digital asset market by most industry executives and analysts but some of its citizens are still skeptical about the local and global markets.

In terms of transaction volumes, Turkey ranks fourth behind the United States, India, and the UK and is looking to improve its local crypto regulations to drive investment.

Despite the soaring growth, regulations, and related market fears have been flagged as a possible stumbling block to more adoption. Like the rest of the world, the major industry collapses including last year’s Terra and FTX have dampened investor confidence and the lack of proper global regulations is a worsening factor.

On its end, the country is drafting virtual asset guidelines to regulate major aspects of the local market following the clamor of a lacuna in the system. The laws that are reported to come into effect in 2024 will help push the country’s case to the Financial Action Task Force (FAFT) to remove it from the gray list.