Turkish investors are starting to trust cryptocurrency more and more, according to a recent survey by Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Paribu. The ‘2024 Cryptocurrency Awareness and Perception Survey’ reveals that crypto is now the third most popular investment among Turks after gold and foreign currency.
Some 56 percent of respondents pick gold as their top pick for investment, while foreign currency comes second, the survey showed. Cryptocurrency, however, stood out in particular, as it was picked out by 30 percent of investors instead of any other assets.
Turkish Investor Shifted Preferences
But it’s a departure from 2023, when real estate was still on trend, though it no longer saw 30 percent appeal, dropping down to 26 percent in 2024. Interest in stocks and mutual funds crept up slightly, to 18% from 13%. Nergis Nurcan Karababa, Paribu’s research content manager, said the crypto boom was the result of its high return potential, accessibility and speed, that makes it an attractive investment to investors.
The survey also shows that awareness of cryptocurrency has grown 683% from 16 percent in 2020 to 99 percent. In 2021, awareness about crypto jumped dramatically, at a time when the global market capitalization of crypto reached a peak of $3 trillion, drawing interest to widely followed assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and Polkadot.
Back in November, despite this growing familiarity with crypto, most Turkish investors are not as well-versed in blockchain technology respectively and face challenges with crypto. While 72 percent of respondents did not know what blockchain was, awareness of the technology is also on the rise, with 25 percent of respondents now being familiar with it. 67% of those who know it, know that blockchain supports cryptocurrencies.
While crypto is mainly considered to be an investment tool, blockchain is a somewhat less intuitive concept for the general public, Karababa said, often seen as a complicated, underlying technology, rather than a direct investment product itself. She said blockchain applications to crypto are still niche, so not everyone that goes into trading crypto really know what they are getting into in terms of the infrastructure.
