Turkey Cracks Down on Unauthorized Crypto Platforms
Turkey’s financial watchdog has taken aim at unauthorized crypto platforms, cutting off access to 46 websites—including major decentralized exchange PancakeSwap—in a sweeping move to tighten control over the country’s digital asset space.
In a notice released Thursday, the Capital Markets Board (CMB) said the blocked platforms were operating without proper authorization, violating the country’s Capital Markets Law. The CMB did not elaborate on how platforms like PancakeSwap, which reported over $325 billion in volume last month, had breached these rules.
This is part of Turkey’s broader regulatory push to bring crypto trading under stricter oversight. Since March, crypto service providers must meet compliance requirements under a new legal framework. Additionally, as of February, anyone in Turkey transacting crypto over 14,000 lira (roughly $425) must disclose their identity, a step aimed at curbing money laundering and illicit finance.
Although Turkish citizens are free to trade and hold digital assets, using crypto for payments remains prohibited—a policy that has sparked legal challenges, including one by a local law firm scheduled for a hearing earlier this year.
Similar actions have been seen globally as countries like Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and the Philippines block or restrict access to crypto platforms they consider non-compliant or unlawful.
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
