Turkey Blocks PancakeSwap in Major Crackdown on Unauthorized Crypto Services

Money Regulator Spans 46 Crypto Sites

Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (CMB) has made a sweeping action against fraudulent cryptocurrency websites, blocking 46. They include PancakeSwap, which is one of the globe’s biggest decentralized exchanges.

In a bulletin released Thursday, the regulator cited violations of Turkey’s Capital Markets Law as the basis for the action. Besides PancakeSwap, others were named including Cryptoradar.

PancakeSwap Among Top DEXs

PancakeSwap, which had over $325 billion in trading volume last June alone, is among leading players in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. It is listed together with Uniswap and Curve as among leading DEXs.

The CMB did not provide the detailed reasoning as to how it determined the services were unauthorized. PancakeSwap had not responded to media inquiries at publication.

Legal and Regulatory Context

It is legal for Turkish citizens to buy, hold, and trade cryptocurrencies, yet banned their use in payments in 2021. Authorities have since improved on monitoring cryptocurrency-related activities.

A Turkish law company was set to sue the payment ban to court throughout May, which represented ongoing legal disagreements over the application of crypto within the country.

A Global Trend towards Restrictions

Turkey is part of a huge list of countries, ranging from Russia and Kazakhstan to Venezuela and the Philippines, that have isolated access to cryptocurrency platforms based on suspicions of non-conformity with rules or linkage to crime.

As global regulators move to impose tighter regulation on decentralized networks, crypto users in Turkey now face yet another limitation on their ability to use international DeFi services.