BREAKDOWN: When Currencies Fail – ‘Bitcoin’ Google Searches in Turkey Rise 400% as Lira Crashes
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Turkish lira plummets as much as 17% after the surprising firing of Turkey’s central bank governor.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and Casper, and this week’s special product launch, Exodus.
Today on the Brief:
- Nigeria central bank reversing stance on crypto ban?
- “The least responsible fiscal policy of the last 40 years”
- Scaramucci’s firm files fifth bitcoin ETF application
Our main discussion: the crash of the Turkish lira. In this episode, NLW looks at the last few years of Turkish monetary policy, inflation and currency crisis, focusing on:
- The seesaw shifts between inflation and crisis on the one hand and interest rate hikes on the other
- The sour legacy of intervention in the central bank by President Erdogan
- Why the Turkish lira had actually increased 3.07% against the dollar in 2021 before this
Finally, he examines why some think the only tool left in the Turkish central bank’s tool kit to fight inflation is currency controls, and why this is driving people to explore bitcoin as an escape valve.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the remarkable things about this moment isn't that Bitcoin and digital assets are going |
| 0:04.3 | to save everyone from the follies of local currency regimes. |
| 0:07.8 | What's remarkable is that for the first time ever in the entire span of human history, |
| 0:13.3 | there is a convenient, easy, permissionless off-ramp from those regimes for those people who |
| 0:18.7 | have the technical know-how to do it. |
| 0:21.7 | The number of people who have that know-how is an ever-expanding group, and that means that Bitcoin and digital |
| 0:26.9 | assets add an X-factor to every single currency crisis from here on out. Welcome back to the |
| 0:34.6 | breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:43.4 | The breakdown is sponsored by nexus.combe, and Exodus, and produced and distributed by CoinDes. |
| 0:50.9 | What's going on, guys? It is Monday, March 22nd, and today we are discussing when currencies fail, |
| 0:58.1 | Bitcoin Google searches in Turkey quadruple as the lira crashes. First up, however, let's do the brief. |
| 1:06.0 | Is Nigeria backing down from their crypto ban? The Central Bank of Nigeria has issued a clarifying statement. |
| 1:12.3 | A couple weeks ago, they came out with a statement basically saying, hey guys, look, |
| 1:15.7 | cryptocurrencies have been banned for the last three years. Banks, you have to stop servicing |
| 1:19.7 | the people with crypto accounts. This clarifying statement, however, said that they had never, |
| 1:24.4 | in fact, banned cryptos and indeed had never even discouraged people |
| 1:27.9 | from trading them. Instead, quote, what we have just done was to prohibit transactions on |
| 1:33.1 | cryptocurrencies in the banking sector. So they're trying to say that this was specifically |
| 1:38.0 | about a replacement, I think, for the Naira in financial transactions. That's what they |
| 1:43.1 | had prohibited. This Nigeria situation |
| 1:45.6 | has been really interesting to watch as many in Parliament reacted not positively to the CBN's |
| 1:51.1 | new ban or new ban talk, but instead called for them to come and testify before Parliament. |
... |
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