By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – The Central Bank of Turkey announced overnight that cryptocurrencies and other assets that are based on distributed ledger technology cannot be used – directly or indirectly – for payments.
The central bank said payments in crypto assets “entail significant risks” for both parties to the transactions.
Firstly, the central bank says cryptocurrencies are not subject to any regulation and supervision mechanisms, nor a regulatory authority. They added that they are excessively volatile, may be used in illegal transactions, wallets can be stolen or used unlawfully, and that transactions are irrevocable.
“It is considered that their use in payments may cause non-recoverable losses for the parties to the transactions due to the above-listed factors and they include elements that may undermine the confidence in methods and instruments used currently in payments,” the Central Bank of Turkey said in a statement.
The regulation is scheduled to come into force from 30th April 2021.
Cryptocurrency prices
After a strong start to the week, Bitcoin has retreated following the news from the Turkish Central Bank. However, prices generally remain elevated in the week that the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), went public.
The decline in cryptocurrencies was not universal with Dogecoin prices almost doubling in the last 24 hours on no apparent news.
At 09:30BST, Bitcoin was down 1.7% at $61,548.