KEY POINTS

  • Turkish lira has weakened several times against US dollar in 2021
  • Turks are reportedly looking for an alternative for the lira
  • Kusama tweeted the Shiba team talked with top officials

Shiba Inu has gone a long way since its release in August 2020 and if the latest speculation is anything to go by, it looks like the dog-themed meme coin would soon be adopted in Turkey.

Speculations about Shiba Inu's adoption in Turkey started after lead developer Shytoshi Kusama wrote on Twitter about the team's interaction with the country's economy minister Mustafa Elitaş, who is also the deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party Group.

"FANTASTIC NEWS. Global adoption continues to grow! #Shibarmy Thank you . @mustafaelitas for meeting with @shibaturkish," Kusama excitedly tweeted. According to Shiba Inu Türkiye, a Shib army in Turkey, they had a face-to-face meeting with Turkey Parliament Officials headed by the minister of economics.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed for Turkey to play a mediation role
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed for Turkey to play a mediation role AFP / Adem ALTAN

They also shared that the meeting included a discussion about Shiba Inu's ecosystem. Shiba Inu Türkiye's Turkish tweet showed that the team had a face-to-face meeting with the minister about the #shiba ecosystem at @TBMMresmi.

The recent meeting between Shiba Inu and Turkey Parliament Officials was probably because the trading activity of the Turkish lira (the country's currency) paired with Shiba Inu and Tether was over five times higher than that of Bitcoin.

The Turkish lira has significantly weakened against the US dollar last year, becoming only the third-most hit currency, after Cuban peso and Libyan dinar. Earlier reports suggested that the Turks were looking for an alternative for the Turkish lira in the face of high inflation.

It turns out that Tether and SHIB seemed to be preferred by many. Tether is the largest stablecoin in terms of market value and is widely considered the digital representation of the U.S. dollar yet with an ability to bypasses traditional banking channels, allowing it to be easily moved across national borders and exchanges.

"The data shows despite the instability faced by the lira, local traders are still attracted to the exceptional returns associated with coins such as SHIB," FRNT Financial head of data and analytics Strahinja Savic said in December last year.

If the latest talks with Turkish authorities were fruitful, it would be considered a remarkable accomplishment for Shiba Inu. SHIB was trading down 1.65% at $0.00002254 with a 24-hour volume of $724,192,852 as of 3:26 a.m. ET on March 11, based on the data from CoinMarketCap.