Turkish Online Searches For Bitcoin Spike 500% As Lira Plunges 17%

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Dictators and control of central banks, it’s a love that history never seems to get enough of. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current President of Turkey, understands that in order to maintain a hold on power, he has to accept a devaluating currency and a sliding stock market from time to time to come across as strong.

In this way, he can control his own economy. The Turkish currency, the lira is sliding, and the stock market fell a good 17% in one session earlier this week.

Imagine if that happened in the Netherlands, France or Germany. Panic would rule. Not so in Turkey where it’s just another day.

Seeing that in Russia and China, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping respectively have been assigned for life now, Erdogan will do everything in his power to remain in economically good standing with his ever growing population.

Google searches for #Bitcoin in Turkey jumped 566% after Turkish Lira drops 17% pic.twitter.com/kNCIktU2cq

— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) March 22, 2021

Even if it means letting the Turkish lira slide ever further down. Given that most Turks are still quite reluctant to vacation anywhere else but in their own country, this works out well for him. For any businessman who works with overseas contracts of course, it means the nightmare of having to renegotiate their deals every few months.

Doesn’t understand economics

According to a Bloomberg opinion piece yesterday, the:

Turkish economic policy appears to be fully under the control of an unchecked autocrat who doesn’t understand economics.

Auch, that’s quite the insult there. Then again it was written by John Authers who even when he still worked at the Financial Times wasn’t Turkey’s biggest fan.

President Erdogan didn’t mind and once again replaced his central banker. The press had someone to blame.

It’s meaningful that global research of the word “bitcoin” is now high but lower than 2017, wheras in Turkey it has already broken ATH. pic.twitter.com/Hk1ofzQT2T

— Plutosky (@evecchione75) March 22, 2021

As a result, online searches for the word Bitcoin are at record highs in Turkey. Google Data trends show that at the exact moment the 82 million Turks realized that their currency was about to be devaluated, they only searched for 1 word Bitcoin. Turkish crypto exchanges saw record traffic the next few hours.

Turkish financial analyst Alper Akalın admitted:

Turkish government’s handling of the country’s currency has been an unintended promotion for crypto.

Luckily for Americans, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell doesn’t let the dollar slide quite that fast, but imagine the value of Bitcoin if he did.