Turkish virtual currency floor owner fled, investors lost billions of dollars

In the midst of the virtual currency fever, a virtual currency exchange in Turkey suddenly collapsed …

Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder of cryptocurrency exchange Thodex. One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Turkey declared that they no longer had enough financial capacity to continue operating, causing hundreds of thousands of investors to fear that they would have lost all their money poured into this exchange. Meanwhile, Turkish authorities are trying to locate the 27-year-old founder of the cryptocurrency exchange, who has fled overseas, Bloomberg reported. It is not clear how many customers of the cryptocurrency exchange called Thodex lost money in this case, and how much the total damage. In a statement sent from a secret location, Thodex founder and CEO, Faruk Fatih Ozer, promised to return the money to the investor and return to Turkey to face the public. refund after refund. However, the Turkish government has launched a blockade on Thodex’s accounts, and its headquarters in Istabul has been ransacked by police. According to Turkish media, the damage in this virtual currency exchange crash could reach $ 2 billion. A lawyer representing the victims said that the investment capital of about 390,000 investors had fallen into a “irreversible” state. However, through a statement posted on the company’s website, Ozer denied both numbers, saying that only about 30,000 investors were affected. Some Turkish officials see the incident as another reason to increase control of the cryptocurrency market. Over the past years, the rapid rise of virtual currency prices globally has been paralleled with many frauds and frauds related to exchanges. Mr. Cemil Ertem, a senior economic adviser to President Tayyip Erdogan, said that the Turkish government needs to act as soon as possible. “Patterns of pyramid fraud are emerging. Turkey needs to implement surveillance regulations that are both suitable to the domestic economic situation and in accordance with global developments”. Thodex is part of the virtual currency fever that attracts a large number of Turkish investors who want to find a “shelter” for their savings in the context of dizzying inflation and a lack of local currency rates. stability. In March, inflation in Turkey was 16.2%, 3 times higher than the 5% inflation target set by the Central Bank of this country. This year, the Lira rate has dropped 10% against the dollar, marking the 9th consecutive year of decline. On Wednesday, Mr. Erdogan revealed that the Turkish government has “burned” $ 165 billion of foreign exchange reserves in the past two years to protect the local currency rate, but has not brought the desired results. Concerns about inflation and exchange rate motivate the Turkish people to look for alternative investment channels, including virtual currency. On Friday last week, the value of virtual currency transactions in Turkey reached more than 1.2 billion USD, up 3 times compared to a week earlier, according to data from coingecko.com. Meanwhile, the average daily trading value of the Turkish stock market is only about $ 3.1 billion.