The week started with a strong economic turmoil and Bitcoin approaching $100,000. However, only in Turkey. A strong political and economic crisis has hit the country in recent days. As a result, the search for the term Bitcoin on Turkish websites soared 566%. Consequently, the price of Bitcoin followed the searches.

It all started at the weekend, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sacked the president of the Turkish Central Bank. Just last week, Naci Agbal had decided to raise the country’s interest rate. The increase was 200 basis points, raising the rate from 17% to 19% per year.

Evolution of Turkey’s interest rate. Source: Koyfin

The decision surprised investors and was seen as positive. After all, the country suffers from inflation that has already reached 25% per year. However, President Erdoğan did not like the new increase and ordered Agbal to resign. In its place, Sahap Kavcioglu, a critic of the recent interest rate hikes, was chosen.

The movement caused the Turkish lira to collapse. On the day of Agbal’s resignation, the country’s currency came to lose 15% of its value against the dollar. The strong blow seen in the graph below represents this drop.

Turkish lira’s performance against the dollar. Source: TradingView

With the fall of the currency, investors looked for ways to protect their purchasing power. And that led Bitcoin to reach new records in the country.

“Officially”, Bitcoin is quoted at 439 thousand Turkish lira, which is equivalent to about US $55 thousand, in line with the international price. However, the cryptocurrency is already trading at almost $100,000 in the P2P market.

At the time of writing this article, it is possible to find offers to sell Bitcoin for 704 thousand lire. The value is equivalent to about US $89 thousand. Earlier, some offers reached 755,000 lire, or $95,000 at the current price. All offers were registered on the LocalBitcoins website.