Following a devastating earthquake that has killed over 1,700 people so far and razed parts of Turkey and Syria to the ground, support from the cryptocurrency sector is pouring in, and multiple crypto exchanges have already started to prepare aid packages for those affected.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey’s Kahramanmaras Province, followed by another, equally severe quake at noon with a measured magnitude of 7.5, and dozens of smaller tremors that were felt across the two neighboring countries and beyond on Monday, February 6.
Governments and organizations around the world have quickly flocked to the victims’ aid, offering assistance in medicine, rescue equipment, financing, and manpower, with similar relief efforts being pledged by multiple crypto trading platforms, including Gate.io, Binance, Bitfinex, Bitget, Bybit, Bitget, and BitMEX.
Pledges of assistance
Indeed, Gate.io’s Twitter channel stated that the platform had “started to prepare aid packages to help those in the earthquake area in Turkey,” and “will deliver them in coordination with the authorities,” while Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao shared expressions of support and promise of help.
These sentiments were also shared by Bitfinex, which said it was “working on an aid package in support of those affected by the earthquake,” as well as Bybit, which echoed feelings of sorrow, stressing its “aid is on its way to the affected region.”
They were joined in their notion by BitMEX, which highlighted it would be donating the proceeds of this week’s Trading Competition to the Red Crescent, encouraging those who can donate to do the same, with concrete steps also being taken by Bitget.
Notably, Turkey is the largest cryptocurrency market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the region that by itself stood out in 2022 for recording the highest crypto transaction volume growth year-on-year (YoY) among all other regions.
As it happens, Turkey assumed 12th place among all countries in Chainanalysis’s 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index, with a YoY crypto transaction volume growth of 10.5%, as its citizens received $192 billion worth of crypto from July 2021 to June 2022, as Finbold reported on October 21.
