Turkey's cryptocurrency market has been under pressure after the country's central bank said it would ban the use of cryptocurrencies and after the collapse of two of its major digital currency exchanges.
The shutdowns of Thodex and Vebitcoin have shed light on another matter: a crypto boom lifted by growing interest in a country of nearly 85 million, particularly over the course of last year.
Bitcoin climbed back to the $50,000 level at $52,134 on Coingecko Monday morning after falling from more than $63,000 to just over $49,000 last week.
Turkey launched an international manhunt for Thodex founder and chief executive officer Faruk Fatih Ozer, after he stopped paying clients and fled to Albania's capital Tuesday with a reported $2 billion in investors' assets.
Police have detained 62 people with suspected connections with Thodex, which went offline on April 18. According to Bloomberg, Thodex offered new registrants millions of free dogecoins last month.
The Istanbul-based Thodex reportedly said 4 million of the meme-inspired crypto tokens had been distributed but many users said they haven't received any and that they have been scammed.
Turkish prosecutors accused Ozer of "aggravated fraud" and founding a "criminal organisation".
Vebitcoin collapsed days later and local news reports said authorities detained the exchange's chief executive Ilker Bas and three other staff on Saturday as part of a massive fraud investigation.
Vebitcoin is Turkey's fourth-largest digital currency exchange with nearly $60 million in daily trading volume, CoinGecko said.
"We would like to state with regret that this situation has led us to a very difficult process. We have decided to cease our activities in order to fulfil all regulations and claims," CNA quoted Vebitcoin as saying on its website.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for swift regulation, warning of "Ponzi schemes" emerging in the cryptocurrency markets.
Some people in Turkey have turned to cryptocurrency as a way to protect their savings from rising inflation and the weakening of the Turkish lira.
"Because cryptocurrency is currently unregulated in Turkey, it could be more vulnerable to abuse and illicit activity," Chainalysis's government affairs chief Jesse Spiro said in remarks quoted by Agence France-Presse.
