Turkey’s Erdogan Appoints Crypto Professor to Central Bank Board: Report

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly appointed professor Fatima Özkul, an expert in crypto assets and blockchain technology, to the central bank's monetary body.

According to Bloomberg, a proclamation appointing Özkul was issued on December 22. Since 2012, she has been a lecturer at Marmara University in Istanbul, specializing in accounting, finance and auditing. Her research area extends to blockchain technology and digital assets after writing a book on crypto asset accounting in 2022, she said in her university profile.

Özkul is the new member of the Central Bank of Turkey's Monetary Policy Committee, whose primary task is to set interest rates to control inflation. The committee raised the country's interest rate by 2.5 percentage points to 42.5 percent on December 21, after Turkey's inflation hit 61.98 percent in November.

Erdogan won Turkey's general election in May, forming a new economic bloc and reportedly appointing former Goldman Sachs banker Hafiz Gey Erkan as central bank governor. In the year In 2022, the central bank successfully conducted the first test of its own digital currency, the digital Turkish lira.

The economic aspect has been increasing the adoption of crypto in the country. According to a report by blockchain analysis firm Chinalysis, Turkey ranks fourth globally in terms of cryptocurrency trading volumes. Between July 2022 and June 2023, an estimated $170 billion in activity behind the US, India and the UK.

In response to the surge in crypto transactions, Turkish authorities are said to be considering regulations for the crypto market, with a focus on licensing and taxation, to remove the country from the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) “grey list.”

The upcoming regulations are expected to set specific licensing requirements to prevent abuse of the system, cover a range of issues from capital adequacy standards, digital security enhancements, and certification of custody services.

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