CRYPTO ASSETS, FIAT MONEY, AND ELECTRONIC MONEY UNDER TURKISH LAW: THE STATUTORY DEFINITIONS AND THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THEM
A Concept Map of the Categories Under Law No. 6362, Law No. 6493, and the Related Secondary Legislation
Att. Cemil Şaar, PhD(c)
The information in this article is current as of the date of publication; however, legislation is constantly evolving and changing. It is important to verify current legislation and obtain legal advice before taking any action. In addition, not all topics are covered in this article; after providing basic information, attention has been drawn to matters that I personally consider important for personal or professional reasons, and the article in this form does not constitute legal advice.
Bu yazının Türkçe versiyonu için: Türk Hukukunda Kripto Varlık, İtibari Para ve Elektronik Para: Yasal Tanımlar ve Aralarındaki Sınırlar
I. WHY THE CATEGORIES MATTER
Turkish financial legislation does not use “money,” “currency,” and “digital asset” as interchangeable descriptions. It operates a set of mutually exclusive statutory categories, and the category into which an instrument falls determines which regulator supervises it, which license is required to deal in it, and which criminal provisions attach to unauthorized activity. Using the wrong term in a contract, a license application, or a marketing document is therefore not a stylistic problem. It is a characterization problem with consequences.
This article sets out those categories and the boundaries between them. It is intended as a reference point for the other articles on this platform, which use these terms without redefining them each time. The practical stakes are set out in the companion article Establishing a VASP with Fiat Rails in Turkey: The KVHS Licensing Path, where the license required, the permitted activities, the capital thresholds, and the reason the fiat leg must run through banks all follow directly from the categories described below.
II. THE UMBRELLA CONCEPT: “FON”
The starting point is the definition of funds (fon, in the sense of PSD2 Article 4(25) rather than an investment fund) in Article 3 of Law No. 6493 on Payment and Securities Settlement Systems, Payment Services and Electronic Money Institutions. That provision defines funds as banknotes, coins, scriptural money, or electronic money. Three observations need to be made based on this. First, Turkish law treats physical cash, bank balances, and electronic money as three distinct things rather than as varieties of one thing. Second, the list is exhaustive for the purposes of that Law. Third, crypto assets do not appear in it.
III. THE FOUR MONETARY CATEGORIES
İtibari para (fiat money): Sovereign money issued by decree, meaning the banknotes and coins issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. The word itibari corresponds to “fiat,” in the sense of deriving value from state authority and public confidence rather than from any commodity backing. A frequent error, including in otherwise careful commentary, is to give “Turkish lira” as the example of itibari para. That conflates two categories: The physical banknote in a wallet is itibari para; the same nominal amount sitting in a bank account is not.
Kaydi para (scriptural money): Money that exists as a record rather than as a physical object, principally bank deposit balances. It is money in the economic sense and funds in the sense of Law No. 6493, but it is not itibari para. The distinction matters because the institutions permitted to hold it are limited. Under Banking Law No. 5411, the collection of deposits and participation funds is reserved to banks, and this monopoly is what forces the fiat leg of every crypto business in Turkey through the banking system.
Elektronik para (electronic money): Defined in Article 3 of Law No. 6493 as monetary value issued against funds accepted by the issuing institution, stored electronically, used to carry out payment transactions defined in that Law, and accepted as a means of payment by persons other than the issuer. It is issued by electronic money institutions licensed and supervised by the Central Bank, which has held that mandate since 1 January 2020. Two points are commonly misunderstood. First, the statutory formulation is “issued against funds accepted,” not “backed one-to-one”; the effect is similar, but the wording is not statutory. Second, electronic money institutions must themselves hold customer funds in accounts at banks, which is a further expression of the deposit monopoly rather than an exception to it. A point of terminology deserves particular care here, because it is frequently confused in commentary: A domestic card payment scheme is not electronic money. Troy, for instance, is a card scheme established and operated by the Interbank Card Centre under a license to establish a card system, and electronic money institutions are members of it rather than instances of it.
Ödeme aracı (payment instrument): A separate category again, covering the instrument or set of procedures used to initiate a payment order rather than the value transferred. Whether something is a payment instrument is the question that the Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments answers in the negative for crypto assets.
IV. KRIPTO VARLIK: TWO DEFINITIONS, THREE YEARS APART
Turkish law contains two definitions of crypto asset, enacted three years apart for different purposes, and the difference between them is instructive.
The first appeared in Article 3 of the Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments, published in Resmî Gazete No. 31456 of 16 April 2021 and in force since 30 April 2021. It defines crypto assets as intangible assets created virtually using distributed ledger technology or similar technology and distributed over digital networks, but not characterized as itibari para, kaydi para, elektronik para, ödeme aracı, securities, or any other capital markets instrument. This was the first definition of the concept in Turkish legislation, and it was expressly framed for the purposes of that Regulation alone.
That negative list is the concept map. Each excluded term is a category with its own licensing regime and its own supervisor, and the drafter placed crypto assets outside all of them at once.
The second definition is the operative one for licensing purposes. Article 3 of Capital Markets Law No. 6362, as amended by Law No. 7518, defines a crypto asset as an intangible asset that can be created and stored electronically using distributed ledger technology or similar technology, distributed over digital networks, and capable of expressing value or a right. It carries no exclusion list. The two definitions coexist, each governing its own field, and neither displaces the other.
Three consequences deserve emphasis. First, exclusion from the money and securities categories is not an exemption from regulation. Crypto assets are regulated under the crypto-specific provisions of Law No. 6362 and the Communiqués III-35/B.1 and III-35/B.2, both published in Resmî Gazete No. 32840 of 13 March 2025, and the licensing consequences of that regime are examined in the companion article referred to above. Second, the capital markets definition is technology-neutral and does not require a token to be fungible, exchange-traded, or issued by an identifiable person. Third, neither instrument uses the phrase kripto para, or crypto currency. Because calling these instruments currency would place them in a category from which the 2021 Regulation expressly removed them.
V. TWO ADJACENT CATEGORIES
Sermaye piyasası aracı (capital markets instrument): Securities and other instruments regulated under Law No. 6362. The boundary with crypto assets is not always self-evident in practice. An instrument marketed as a token may, on analysis of its economic substance, be characterized as a capital markets instrument, in which case an entirely different regulatory regime applies. Article 13(1) of Law No. 6362, as amended by Law No. 7518, empowers the Board to set principles under which capital markets instruments are issued as crypto assets and monitored in the electronic environment maintained by crypto asset service providers rather than registered with the Central Securities Depository, and provides that rights are then tracked, asserted against third parties, and transferred by reference to those records. The same provision leaves the procedures to be determined by the Board, and no implementing regulation has been published. The route is therefore legally established but not operationally available.
Dijital kıymetli maden (digital precious metal): The newest category, introduced by the Communiqué Amending the Communiqué on Precious Metal Standards and Refineries, published in Resmî Gazete No. 33324 of 29 July 2026 and in force on publication. It permits unprocessed precious metals held physically at the Mint or the Exchange to be represented digitally using distributed ledger technology, subject to Ministry approval, with transfer confined to Exchange members. The terminological point is interesting: The legislation uses neither “RWA” nor “tokenization.” It creates a third position, treating the digital precious metal as an intangible asset distinct both from capital markets instruments and from the crypto assets traded on licensed platforms.
VI. TERMS WITH NO LEGAL DEFINITION
Three widely used terms have no statutory definition in Turkish law, and this should be stated plainly rather than papered over. Stablecoin is one: Neither the Communiqués III-35/B.1 and III-35/B.2 nor Law No. 6362 defines it, and a dollar-pegged stablecoin is therefore simply a crypto asset, which is why trading it does not amount to foreign exchange activity. RWA, or real-world asset, is a sectoral rather than a legal expression; the nearest statutory concept is the digital precious metal described above, and it is considerably narrower. Tokenization likewise appears in market usage and in commentary but not in the operative provisions.
The absence of a definition is not a gap to be exploited. Where an instrument has no settled statutory label, the regulator characterizes it by reference to what it does, and the characterization arrives after the product has launched rather than before.
VII. CONCLUSION
The structure of Turkish law in this area is more coherent than the surrounding commentary suggests. There is an exhaustive definition of funds, three distinct monetary categories within them, a separate category for payment instruments, and two crypto asset definitions drafted so as to sit outside all of them while remaining fully regulated. The categories that cause difficulty are the newest and the least defined: The boundary between crypto assets and capital markets instruments, and the narrow-controlled regime for digital precious metals.
This article does not cover every aspect of the framework, and characterization questions of this kind turn on the specific features of the instrument rather than on the label attached to it. As with every other aspect of foreign investment in Turkey, the cost of getting these questions wrong significantly exceeds the cost of obtaining competent legal counsel before taking any step.
Att. Cemil Şaar, PhD(c)
This article was originally published at https://cemilsaar.com/tpost/crypto-asset-fiat-money-electronic-money-turkish-law
cemilsaar@kstlawfirm.com | +90 535 416 9476 | linkedin.com/in/cemilsaar
A Concept Map of the Categories Under Law No. 6362, Law No. 6493, and the Related Secondary Legislation
Att. Cemil Şaar, PhD(c)
The information in this article is current as of the date of publication; however, legislation is constantly evolving and changing. It is important to verify current legislation and obtain legal advice before taking any action. In addition, not all topics are covered in this article; after providing basic information, attention has been drawn to matters that I personally consider important for personal or professional reasons, and the article in this form does not constitute legal advice.
Bu yazının Türkçe versiyonu için: Türk Hukukunda Kripto Varlık, İtibari Para ve Elektronik Para: Yasal Tanımlar ve Aralarındaki Sınırlar
I. WHY THE CATEGORIES MATTER
Turkish financial legislation does not use “money,” “currency,” and “digital asset” as interchangeable descriptions. It operates a set of mutually exclusive statutory categories, and the category into which an instrument falls determines which regulator supervises it, which license is required to deal in it, and which criminal provisions attach to unauthorized activity. Using the wrong term in a contract, a license application, or a marketing document is therefore not a stylistic problem. It is a characterization problem with consequences.
This article sets out those categories and the boundaries between them. It is intended as a reference point for the other articles on this platform, which use these terms without redefining them each time. The practical stakes are set out in the companion article Establishing a VASP with Fiat Rails in Turkey: The KVHS Licensing Path, where the license required, the permitted activities, the capital thresholds, and the reason the fiat leg must run through banks all follow directly from the categories described below.
II. THE UMBRELLA CONCEPT: “FON”
The starting point is the definition of funds (fon, in the sense of PSD2 Article 4(25) rather than an investment fund) in Article 3 of Law No. 6493 on Payment and Securities Settlement Systems, Payment Services and Electronic Money Institutions. That provision defines funds as banknotes, coins, scriptural money, or electronic money. Three observations need to be made based on this. First, Turkish law treats physical cash, bank balances, and electronic money as three distinct things rather than as varieties of one thing. Second, the list is exhaustive for the purposes of that Law. Third, crypto assets do not appear in it.
III. THE FOUR MONETARY CATEGORIES
İtibari para (fiat money): Sovereign money issued by decree, meaning the banknotes and coins issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. The word itibari corresponds to “fiat,” in the sense of deriving value from state authority and public confidence rather than from any commodity backing. A frequent error, including in otherwise careful commentary, is to give “Turkish lira” as the example of itibari para. That conflates two categories: The physical banknote in a wallet is itibari para; the same nominal amount sitting in a bank account is not.
Kaydi para (scriptural money): Money that exists as a record rather than as a physical object, principally bank deposit balances. It is money in the economic sense and funds in the sense of Law No. 6493, but it is not itibari para. The distinction matters because the institutions permitted to hold it are limited. Under Banking Law No. 5411, the collection of deposits and participation funds is reserved to banks, and this monopoly is what forces the fiat leg of every crypto business in Turkey through the banking system.
Elektronik para (electronic money): Defined in Article 3 of Law No. 6493 as monetary value issued against funds accepted by the issuing institution, stored electronically, used to carry out payment transactions defined in that Law, and accepted as a means of payment by persons other than the issuer. It is issued by electronic money institutions licensed and supervised by the Central Bank, which has held that mandate since 1 January 2020. Two points are commonly misunderstood. First, the statutory formulation is “issued against funds accepted,” not “backed one-to-one”; the effect is similar, but the wording is not statutory. Second, electronic money institutions must themselves hold customer funds in accounts at banks, which is a further expression of the deposit monopoly rather than an exception to it. A point of terminology deserves particular care here, because it is frequently confused in commentary: A domestic card payment scheme is not electronic money. Troy, for instance, is a card scheme established and operated by the Interbank Card Centre under a license to establish a card system, and electronic money institutions are members of it rather than instances of it.
Ödeme aracı (payment instrument): A separate category again, covering the instrument or set of procedures used to initiate a payment order rather than the value transferred. Whether something is a payment instrument is the question that the Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments answers in the negative for crypto assets.
IV. KRIPTO VARLIK: TWO DEFINITIONS, THREE YEARS APART
Turkish law contains two definitions of crypto asset, enacted three years apart for different purposes, and the difference between them is instructive.
The first appeared in Article 3 of the Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments, published in Resmî Gazete No. 31456 of 16 April 2021 and in force since 30 April 2021. It defines crypto assets as intangible assets created virtually using distributed ledger technology or similar technology and distributed over digital networks, but not characterized as itibari para, kaydi para, elektronik para, ödeme aracı, securities, or any other capital markets instrument. This was the first definition of the concept in Turkish legislation, and it was expressly framed for the purposes of that Regulation alone.
That negative list is the concept map. Each excluded term is a category with its own licensing regime and its own supervisor, and the drafter placed crypto assets outside all of them at once.
The second definition is the operative one for licensing purposes. Article 3 of Capital Markets Law No. 6362, as amended by Law No. 7518, defines a crypto asset as an intangible asset that can be created and stored electronically using distributed ledger technology or similar technology, distributed over digital networks, and capable of expressing value or a right. It carries no exclusion list. The two definitions coexist, each governing its own field, and neither displaces the other.
Three consequences deserve emphasis. First, exclusion from the money and securities categories is not an exemption from regulation. Crypto assets are regulated under the crypto-specific provisions of Law No. 6362 and the Communiqués III-35/B.1 and III-35/B.2, both published in Resmî Gazete No. 32840 of 13 March 2025, and the licensing consequences of that regime are examined in the companion article referred to above. Second, the capital markets definition is technology-neutral and does not require a token to be fungible, exchange-traded, or issued by an identifiable person. Third, neither instrument uses the phrase kripto para, or crypto currency. Because calling these instruments currency would place them in a category from which the 2021 Regulation expressly removed them.
V. TWO ADJACENT CATEGORIES
Sermaye piyasası aracı (capital markets instrument): Securities and other instruments regulated under Law No. 6362. The boundary with crypto assets is not always self-evident in practice. An instrument marketed as a token may, on analysis of its economic substance, be characterized as a capital markets instrument, in which case an entirely different regulatory regime applies. Article 13(1) of Law No. 6362, as amended by Law No. 7518, empowers the Board to set principles under which capital markets instruments are issued as crypto assets and monitored in the electronic environment maintained by crypto asset service providers rather than registered with the Central Securities Depository, and provides that rights are then tracked, asserted against third parties, and transferred by reference to those records. The same provision leaves the procedures to be determined by the Board, and no implementing regulation has been published. The route is therefore legally established but not operationally available.
Dijital kıymetli maden (digital precious metal): The newest category, introduced by the Communiqué Amending the Communiqué on Precious Metal Standards and Refineries, published in Resmî Gazete No. 33324 of 29 July 2026 and in force on publication. It permits unprocessed precious metals held physically at the Mint or the Exchange to be represented digitally using distributed ledger technology, subject to Ministry approval, with transfer confined to Exchange members. The terminological point is interesting: The legislation uses neither “RWA” nor “tokenization.” It creates a third position, treating the digital precious metal as an intangible asset distinct both from capital markets instruments and from the crypto assets traded on licensed platforms.
VI. TERMS WITH NO LEGAL DEFINITION
Three widely used terms have no statutory definition in Turkish law, and this should be stated plainly rather than papered over. Stablecoin is one: Neither the Communiqués III-35/B.1 and III-35/B.2 nor Law No. 6362 defines it, and a dollar-pegged stablecoin is therefore simply a crypto asset, which is why trading it does not amount to foreign exchange activity. RWA, or real-world asset, is a sectoral rather than a legal expression; the nearest statutory concept is the digital precious metal described above, and it is considerably narrower. Tokenization likewise appears in market usage and in commentary but not in the operative provisions.
The absence of a definition is not a gap to be exploited. Where an instrument has no settled statutory label, the regulator characterizes it by reference to what it does, and the characterization arrives after the product has launched rather than before.
VII. CONCLUSION
The structure of Turkish law in this area is more coherent than the surrounding commentary suggests. There is an exhaustive definition of funds, three distinct monetary categories within them, a separate category for payment instruments, and two crypto asset definitions drafted so as to sit outside all of them while remaining fully regulated. The categories that cause difficulty are the newest and the least defined: The boundary between crypto assets and capital markets instruments, and the narrow-controlled regime for digital precious metals.
This article does not cover every aspect of the framework, and characterization questions of this kind turn on the specific features of the instrument rather than on the label attached to it. As with every other aspect of foreign investment in Turkey, the cost of getting these questions wrong significantly exceeds the cost of obtaining competent legal counsel before taking any step.
Att. Cemil Şaar, PhD(c)
This article was originally published at https://cemilsaar.com/tpost/crypto-asset-fiat-money-electronic-money-turkish-law
cemilsaar@kstlawfirm.com | +90 535 416 9476 | linkedin.com/in/cemilsaar