Turkey Buying Up Gold From its Citizens to Protect the Turkish Lira
Amidst serious devaluation of its national currency, the Turkish Lira, Turkey’s central bank has announced the launch of an incentive scheme to pursue Turkish residents to convert their gold deposits and participation funds into lira time deposit accounts.
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (TCMB) released a statement where it explained that their ‘offer’ was put in place “to support financial stability” in the country.
Turkey is currently experiencing a deep economic crisis which has led to surging prices in the country and a significant depreciation of the lira.
As a result of this, Turkish residents look for alternative stores of value like gold and digital currencies. And effectively, Turkish residents are choosing to protect their wealth by investing in Bitcoin and gold.
In what looks to be Turkish government’s last resort in its efforts to stop further devaluation of its national currency, the central bank is now looking to strengthen its gold reserves by providing incentives to citizens that explained in the statement that choose to convert their gold into lira.
Although it does not disclose how the TCMB is planning to reward residents that agree to have their gold or participation funds converted, the central bank statement reads:
“The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has decided to provide [an] incentive to deposit and participation fund holders in the event that their gold deposits and participation funds are converted into Turkish lira time deposit accounts at the account holder’s request.”
While dealing with the struggling economy, cryptocurrency faces another challenge to Turkish president Erdogan, who sent a new crypto law to parliament last week. Nevertheless, there are some who believe that cryptocurrency could be a solution for the country. In October, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitmex, Alex Hoeptner, said to expect that by the end of 2022, at least five countries will have accepted Bitcoin as legal tender just like El Salvador. And since Bitcoin “fixes inflation”, he hinted towards Turkey.
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Source: igaming
