$69.8 Million in Ethereum (ETH) Leave Turkey’s Top Exchange Amid Regulatory Boost

As it became known today, Turkey is introducing stricter anti-money laundering (AML) regulations related to cryptocurrency. In particular, from Feb. 25, 2025, users who carry out transactions over 15,000 Turkish Liras, equivalent to $425, will be required to provide their identification information to the country’s cryptocurrency service providers.

Interestingly, a large Ethereum (ETH) withdrawal was spotted on the popular Turkish crypto exchange BTCTurk today. According to a report from Whale Alert, 20,000 ETH, which is equivalent to 69.87 million, was withdrawn from the exchange to an unknown wallet under the address “0x76eC.”

What can we say about the recipient? The address is probably new and had no transactions until today. However, all transactions today were made with the participation of BTCTurk.

On the one hand, this may mean that the address belongs to the exchange itself. On the other hand, however, it may also be the wallet of a large investor moving funds in connection with the latest news.

🚨 🚨 🚨 20,000 #ETH (69,872,495 USD) transferred from #BTCTurk to unknown wallethttps://t.co/tPjKuxjgGM

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 25, 2024

According to summer data from Kaiko, the Turkish lira has become the third fiat currency in the world in terms of crypto trading volume — amid high inflation and a weak TRY. The share of the Turkish lira (TRY) in the cryptocurrency market reached a record high of 19% in the first half of 2024.

We expect that some perturbations may await us due to the new regulations and the volume of the Turkish crypto market. However, given the dynamics of cryptocurrency prices in recent days, such regulatory FUD is unlikely to have a significant impact on quotes.

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