FTX Turkey Review: What Happened and What It Means for Crypto Users

When FTX Turkey, the local arm of the now-defunct global crypto exchange FTX shut down overnight in 2022, thousands of Turkish users lost access to their funds. It wasn’t just a technical glitch—it was the collapse of a platform that promised low fees, fast withdrawals, and easy access to global markets. FTX Turkey operated under the same parent company as FTX.com, which was later exposed for massive fraud, misused customer funds, and hidden financial ties. This isn’t just a story about a failed business—it’s a warning about trusting centralized exchanges that lack transparency.

FTX Turkey was popular because it offered Turkish Lira (TRY) deposits and withdrawals, something few exchanges did at the time. Users could buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins without jumping through KYC hoops—until they suddenly couldn’t. The FTX exchange, a once-leading global crypto trading platform claimed to be secure and regulated, but internal documents later revealed it was using customer deposits to fund risky bets and personal spending by its executives. In Turkey, where crypto adoption grew rapidly due to inflation and currency instability, FTX Turkey became a go-to for everyday traders. But when the parent company collapsed, there was no local safety net. Turkish users had no legal recourse, no deposit insurance, and no way to recover their assets.

The fallout from FTX Turkey also exposed how weak local crypto regulations were. Unlike banks, crypto exchanges in Turkey weren’t required to hold reserves or undergo audits. The Turkey crypto regulations, the legal framework governing digital asset platforms in Turkey focused on taxation, not consumer protection. So when FTX vanished, the government didn’t step in to protect users—it just warned people to be careful. Meanwhile, other exchanges like Binance and Paribu scrambled to fill the gap, but many users still remember the panic of watching their balances disappear without warning.

Today, FTX Turkey is gone. Its website is offline. Its domain is for sale. But the lessons are still live. If you’re using any exchange that handles your local currency—whether it’s TRY, ARS, or NGN—you need to ask: Who owns this platform? Are they audited? Do they hold customer funds in separate wallets? And most importantly, what happens if they vanish tomorrow? The crypto world moves fast, but trust shouldn’t be a luxury. The FTX collapse, the largest fraud in crypto history didn’t just break a company—it broke faith in centralized systems. What follows below are real reviews, deep dives, and warnings about other platforms that might be walking the same path. Don’t assume safety. Verify everything.