The South African Rand (ZAR) has joined the Turkish Lira early this morning as the latest currency to experience a massive hammering.
Dropping around 10% early this morning before a very slight recovery, many have attributed the drop to a knock on effect following the significant slide in the value of the Turkish Lira on Friday amid troubling economic times for Turkey.
What is interesting for the crypto community is that both slides saw a significant spike in bitcoin (BTC) volume – as data from CryptoCompare show:
Similarly, the Turkish Lira saw a substantial surge in bitcoin volume on Friday:
Commenting on the sudden drop in the Lira, Ran Neuner – founder of Onchain Capital and CNBC host – thought that the transfer to crypto was in fact surprisingly low:
Emerging market currencies collapsing on the back of the move by the Turkish lira! I would have expected more inflow into a decentralized asset..
— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) August 13, 2018
With many in the crypto-verse regularly touting the merits of bitcoin and other crypto-assets as alternatives to fiat currencies – particularly in states with volatile or hyper-inflationary currencies – close attention will be paid to how citizens and investors in Turkey, South Africa and other states such as Mexico react to these sudden currency events.
