Risks of Advertising Crypto Services to Turkish Users Without a License

The Deeming Rule of Law No. 6362 Article 99/A, the Reverse Solicitation Carve-Out, and the Advertising Rules That Bind Licensed Platforms

For the Turkish version of this article, see Lisanssız Kripto Platformlarının Türkiye’de Yerleşik Kullanıcılara Reklam Yasağı.

Foreign exchanges, wallets and web3 projects sometimes assume that Turkish law reaches them only if they open an office in Turkey. In my experience this mistaken assumption is most often caused by marketing teams working in isolation from legal counsel. The assumption that mere advertising or promotional activity to “test the market” must be lawful is an understandable one for those outside the legal profession. Since the 2024 amendments to the Capital Markets Law, Law No. 6362¹, a foreign platform that merely promotes its crypto services to persons resident in Turkey is treated as carrying out crypto asset service provision in Turkey without authorization.

This article explains when advertising and marketing make a foreign platform’s activity “directed at” Turkey, what the reverse solicitation carve-out does and does not protect, what the consequences are for the platform and for those who promote it, and which advertising rules continue to apply once a platform is licensed. The licensing process itself is covered in a separate article on the KVHS license for fiat-enabled crypto platforms, and the underlying concepts in the article on crypto assets, fiat money and electronic money under Turkish law.

Law No. 7518², which amended Law No. 6362, was published in the Official Gazette of 02.07.2024 (No. 32590) and entered into force on that date. It placed crypto asset service providers (kripto varlık hizmet sağlayıcıları, “KVHS”) under the regulation and supervision of the Capital Markets Board (Sermaye Piyasası Kurulu, the “Board”). The two implementing communiqués, Communiqué No. III-35/B.1³ and Communiqué No. III-35/B.2⁴, were published in the Official Gazette of 13.03.2025 (No. 32840).

Under Communiqué No. III-35/B.2 Article 6/1, each regulated crypto service may be carried out as a regular, commercial or professional activity only with the Board’s permission, and under Article 6/2 only by KVHS authorized under Articles 35/B and 35/C of Law No. 6362.

Unauthorized crypto asset service provision: Under Law No. 6362 Article 99/A/1, carrying out crypto asset services without the Board’s permission. The provision expressly includes activity by platforms established abroad that is directed at persons resident in Turkey, and the offering to Turkish residents of any crypto activity the Board has prohibited.

Law No. 6362 Article 99/A/1 does not leave the question of targeting to case-by-case assessment. It provides that a foreign platform’s activities are deemed to be directed at persons resident in Turkey if any one of the following exists:

(i) A place of business opened in Turkey;

(ii) A Turkish-language website; or

(iii) Promotion and marketing activities regarding the crypto services offered, carried out directly and/or through persons or institutions resident in Turkey.

The indicators are alternatives, each one being sufficient to trigger the requirement. The same provision authorizes the Board to set additional criteria for the determination. Communiqué No. III-35/B.2 Article 9/2 repeats the three indicators. I have not located any further criteria issued by the Board in its communiqués, principle decisions or weekly bulletins.

Transitional Article 11/4 of Law No. 6362 required foreign KVHS to end activity directed at Turkish residents within three months of the entry into force of Law No. 7518. The Board’s announcement of 02.07.2024 set that date as 02.10.2024 and stated that Articles 99/A and 109/A would be applied to those continuing after it. Transitional Article 11/5 applied the same three-month deadline to crypto ATMs and similar devices located in Turkey.

The third indicator is the one that most often catches foreign projects unaware. The statute covers marketing carried out “through persons or institutions resident in Turkey”. In practical terms, this is the language that captures Turkish influencers, affiliate and referral partners, local agencies, community managers and event organizers who promote a foreign platform to a Turkish audience. The platform does not need to employ them for its activity to be deemed “directed at Turkey”.

Reverse solicitation: Under Communiqué No. III-35/B.2 Article 9/1, services that persons resident in Turkey obtain from foreign KVHS entirely on their own initiative, together with the accounts they open, the cash and crypto assets they send and the transactions they carry out there, fall outside the Communiqué, provided that no promotion, advertising or marketing is directed at persons resident in Turkey. The European Union offers a parallel in Binance’s current situation. MiCA Article 61 contains the same carve-out, and ESMA’s Guidelines on reverse solicitation (26.02.2025) read “own exclusive initiative” as narrowly as the Turkish text does: Geo-targeted advertising, local-language websites, influencers and sponsorships all count as solicitation. When the MiCA transitional period ended on 01.07.2026, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange and one without a MiCA license, continued to serve EU users on the strength of that carve-out; by October 2026 ESMA and the French, German and Greek authorities had sent it information requests, with ESMA stating that the exemption is “very narrowly framed”. A foreign platform counting on reverse solicitation for its Turkish user base should expect a similar reading from the Board.

In my assessment, the following typically defeat the carve-out in practice: Advertising campaigns geo-targeted at Turkey, Turkish-language social media accounts or channels, sponsorships and events aimed at a Turkish audience, and referral or affiliate programs run through Turkish residents. Whether a particular English-language communication is “directed at” Turkish residents will depend on its content, audience and channel, and the Board may set additional criteria at any time. One example I have seen in practice: A foreign exchange distributed QR codes aimed at Turkish users, and anyone who scanned them received a certain coin.

Under Law No. 6362 Article 109/A, natural persons found to be carrying out KVHS activity without permission, and the authorized officers of legal entities doing so, face imprisonment of three to five years and a judicial fine of five thousand to ten thousand days.

The Board’s practice shows that criminal complaints are not limited to the platform. In its bulletin No. 2026/51⁵ (13.08.2026), the Board filed criminal complaints under Article 109/A, read with Article 37 of the Turkish Criminal Code, Law No. 5237⁶ (joint perpetration), against individuals who paid for the domain name registrations of websites carrying out unauthorized crypto activity. Persons who help an unauthorized platform reach Turkish users should therefore not assume that liability stops with the foreign company.

Under Law No. 6362 Article 99/A/3, the Board orders the removal of content and/or the blocking of access, implemented through the Association of Access Providers (Erişim Sağlayıcıları Birliği), where it learns of internet advertisements, announcements or notices contrary to its rules or prohibitions, of unauthorized crypto investment advice or portfolio management, or of unauthorized KVHS activity carried out over the internet.

The Board uses this power routinely, and not only against obscure websites. In bulletin No. 2024/56⁷ (12.12.2024), in a combined list of websites found to be providing unauthorized crypto services or offshore leveraged trading to Turkish residents, it resolved to block access to, among others, the websites of two well-known international crypto exchanges. In bulletin No. 2025/55⁸ (23.10.2025), the blocking order extended expressly to a platform’s social media accounts.

Article 99/A/1 applies Article 100/1 to the announcements, advertisements and commercial communications of unauthorized KVHS. Under Article 100/1, where a person uses words creating the impression of authorized activity in its trade name, announcements or advertisements, the advertisements may be stopped and collected alongside criminal prosecution, and its workplaces may be temporarily closed on the Board’s request. For advertising outside the internet that breaches the Board’s rules, Article 99/A/4 allows the advertisements to be stopped or collected through the competent local authorities.

Crypto advertising is also commercial advertising under the Consumer Protection Law, Law No. 6502⁹. Under Article 61/7, advertisers, advertising agencies and media organizations must all comply with the advertising rules. Under Articles 63 and 77/12, the Advertising Board (Reklam Kurulu) may impose stoppage, correction, administrative fines and interim stoppage of up to three months, and where the breach occurs online it may order content removal and access blocking. For advertising over the internet, Article 77/12-e sets the fine at 600,000 to 6,000,000 Türk lirası. Under Article 17/7 of the Misdemeanors Law, Law No. 5326¹⁰, these amounts are increased each year by the revaluation rate; applying the rates of 43.93% for 2024 and 25.49% for 2025, the range for 2026 is, on my calculation, 1,083,706 to 10,837,065 Türk lirası.

Two provisions of the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices¹¹ (Official Gazette 10.01.2015, No. 29232) deserve particular attention in this context:

(i) Item A/8 of its Annex lists as an unfair commercial practice in all circumstances falsely stating, or creating the impression, that a good or service may lawfully be offered. In my view, a Turkey-facing campaign by an unlicensed platform is exposed under this item.

(ii) Article 23/A, added by the amendment published in the Official Gazette of 01.07.2026 (No. 33297) and in force since 01.08.2026, requires advertising through social media influencers to be clearly identified with the word “Reklam” or “Tanıtım”, together with the advertiser’s name or one of the prescribed acknowledgement phrases, visible immediately without scrolling and repeated in each post.

A license removes the unauthorized-activity problem; it does not remove advertising restrictions. Communiqué No. III-35/B.1 Article 30 requires KVHS advertising, announcements, publications, promotions and notices in any medium to be objective, and prohibits content based on false or misleading information or exploiting customers’ lack of experience or knowledge. Under Article 30/2, no absolute return or guarantee against loss may be promised, save where legislation permits.

Under Article 30/4, advertisements may not contain:

(a) Statements that the customer will earn in every case or never lose;

(b) Statements aimed at particular professions or groups, such as university students or homemakers, or promising extra income;

(c) Statements that transactions are guaranteed, safe, or secured by the Board or another public authority;

(ç) Statements that transactions carry no risk, require no knowledge, or can be learned in a short training;

(d–g) Unsubstantiated statements that single out the platform, statements aimed at religious, cultural or social sensitivities, price targets, and persons or subjects creating a false or misleading impression.

Article 30/5 prohibits promotion campaigns involving very high-value prizes, any benefit to persons who bring in customers or to the customers they bring in, unforeseeable costs, promised returns, or steering toward investment in particular crypto assets. Figures such as customer numbers or trading volume may be used only with a reference to their source (Article 30/3). Insurance may not be used as an advertising theme (Article 30/6), and the same rules apply to one-to-one promotion (Article 30/7). Advertisements must carry the trade name, or a registered business name or trademark (Article 7/4).

The Advertising Board applies consumer law to licensed platforms in parallel. In recent decisions, it imposed stoppage orders on licensed Turkish platforms for comparative claims such as “the crypto trading platform offering the best prices” and “Türkiye’s most innovative and advantageous crypto asset exchange” (bulletin No. 367, files 2026/977 and 2026/1020), and in file 2025/35 (bulletin No. 355) it imposed an administrative fine of 863,580 Türk lirası, which is exactly the 2025 revalued minimum for internet advertising, together with a stoppage order on a platform’s prize campaign that tied rewards to deposits, first trades and trading volume without clearly stating the prizes and their quantities.

Finally, a point for the reverse direction: Under Communiqué No. III-35/B.1 Article 17/7, persons without the Board’s permission may not use any word or expression in their articles of association, trade names, announcements or advertisements that creates the impression that they provide KVHS services.

Not if the ads constitute promotion or marketing directed at persons resident in Turkey. Under Law No. 6362 Article 99/A/1, any one of the three indicators is enough, and promotion and marketing is one of them. Language and the absence of an office do not cure it.

The influencer’s promotion is one of the ways the statute deems a foreign platform’s activity to be directed at Turkey. The Board’s practice shows that it files criminal complaints not only against platforms but also against persons who help them operate, and the Advertising Board can act against advertisers, agencies and media organizations under Law No. 6502 Article 61/7. Since 01.08.2026, influencer content must also be labeled as advertising.

Services obtained entirely on the customer’s own initiative fall outside Communiqué No. III-35/B.2 under Article 9/1, but only if the platform does no promotion, advertising or marketing directed at Turkish residents. Any such activity removes that protection.

Turkish law treats marketing as a jurisdictional trigger. For a foreign crypto business, the decisive question is not where it is incorporated or which language its website uses, but whether it promotes its services to people resident in Turkey, directly or through local intermediaries. If it does, it is carrying out unauthorized KVHS activity, with criminal exposure under Article 109/A, access blocking under Article 99/A/3, and advertising sanctions under both capital markets and consumer law.

The options are therefore binary: Obtain a license and advertise within the limits of Communiqué No. III-35/B.1 Article 30, or refrain from any Turkey-directed promotion and rely on reverse solicitation alone. There is no licensed-elsewhere middle ground, and the practice of the Board and the Advertising Board shows that both regimes are enforced.

For related writing you may refer to our Emerging Technologies & Digital Assets service page.

cemilsaar@kstlawfirm.com | +90 535 416 9476 | linkedin.com/in/cemilsaar