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Meme Tokens Surpass Bitcoin in Turkish Trading Activity This Year
The Turkish cryptocurrency market has seen significant growth in recent years. Currently, more than half of the population invests in cryptocurrencies, according to surveys and polls.
This is evident from the fact that the Turkish Lira (TRY) is the fourth most used fiat currency in cryptocurrencies. Several macroeconomic factors are fueling this crypto adoption in the country. Therefore, stablecoins and meme coins have emerged as the favorites of Turkish investors, even surpassing Bitcoin.
Stablecoins and meme coins dominate Turkish trade
According to the latest relationship According to Kaiko, Turkey’s inflationary conditions have significantly increased stablecoin usage in recent years. In 2024, the research firm found that USDT-TRY dominates as the largest trading pair by volume on Binance, reaching over $22 billion, more than five times larger than the next largest pair, PEPE-USDT, which has $4 billion.
Notably, meme tokens have surpassed Bitcoin in terms of trading volume this year, indicating that Turkish traders are also turning to more speculative cryptocurrencies to hedge against currency fluctuations and make profits.
The increased usage of stablecoins is further reflected in the main Bitcoin trading pairs on BTCTurk, which are BTC-USDT and BTC-TRY.
One of the main reasons driving the adoption of cryptocurrencies is Turkey’s fight against double-digit inflation and the currency devaluation for years, with an average inflation rate above 40% over the past five years. In response, the central bank adopted an unorthodox monetary policy, cutting rates until June 2023. However, this worsened the devaluation of the Turkish lira, which lost more than 300% of its value from the end of 2020 to the end of 2023.
Turkey’s decision to normalize its monetary policy after the 2023 elections failed to restore confidence in the TRY, whose value continued to decline in 2024, albeit less rapidly.
Binance Sees Strong Expansion in Türkiye
Amid economic challenges, Binance has strengthened its position as one of the two largest trading platforms for Turkish traders, thanks to deep liquidity and low fees. As part of a large-scale zero-fee campaign, it offered zero fees for BTC-TRY trading between July 2022 and March 2023.
Offering a wide range of TRY-denominated trading pairs and aggressively adding new pairs in recent years have helped Binance maintain its leadership in the country despite the 2022 cryptocurrency bear market. Binance introduced 61 new TRY trading pairs in 2024 alone, bringing the total number to over 200.
Other exchanges, such as Gate.io, KuCoin, and OKX, have jumped into the Turkish crypto ecosystem, but their overall market share remains less than 1%.