Turkish Web3 Ecocsystem Deep Dive
Web3 is new age of the internet and developments around the subject is appealing. It uses blockchain technology to be transparent and save anonymity at the same time. If you have a brief idea of Web1, Web2, and Web3, but can’t remember the differences between them, you can easily understand the concepts of the internet’s development eras easily by visiting these websites for a couple of seconds:
As an emerging country, blockchain technologies seem relatively new in Turkey. Research shows that there are many people who have bought Bitcoin, but never heard of blockchain before. Additionally Turkey is one of the countries that has most of the crypto early adopters in the world. We can confidently say that there is less knowledge of blockchain as a technology than the finance aspect of it. People love the idea of earning money easily everywhere in the world and it’s not different in Turkey either.
It wouldn’t be a surprise for us to see today, crypto influencers are still the most followed figures when it comes to blockchain influencers. The idea of Web3 and the things we can build with Web3 remains unknown to most of the people here.
Luckily, there are many established Web3 projects, such as clubs and startups from the early adapters here in Turkey and I think we are ready to change the research conclusions. Particularly, young and active internet users are eager to show interest in blockchain and Web3 concepts. We can reach this conclusion by looking at the number of blockchain clubs in universities and young people’s tendency to join blockchain education NGOs. Here is a brief map of the Web3 ecosystem in Turkey I made on Miro:
Solana Foundation is dedicated to the decentralization, adoption, and security of the Solana ecosystem. They stepped into the Turkey Web3 ecosystem recently and seem ready to help people to explore Web3 technologies with their initiatives! Let’s see their projects so far:
Patika.dev is a startup that creates development pathways and development programs and bootcamps, sponsored by their partner companies. Recently, they partnered with Superteam and they are creating a fun space to explore the Web3 and Solana ecosystems. Thanks to their partnership, I’m researching Web3 projects in Turkey to form an ecosystem map and improve my knowledge.
They organized a practicum for people to learn the fundamentals of Web3, Solana, and Rust recently. With this bootcamp, participants will be ready to build a dApp on Solana. Also, participants will be able to claim their limited edition ‘Solana x Patika’ series NFT, which is a great rewarding system in a Web3 way! Additionally, they are working on a Solana developers gathering named “Solana Hacker House” in Istanbul.
UP School is an educational technology initiative set up to kickstart young women’s careers in technology by providing them with the technical and soft skills necessary for success. They also have Web3 development bootcamps thanks to their partnership with Solana Foundation.
Speaking of Web3 education, it’s important to mention the impact of universities in the Web3 ecosystem.
University Blockchain Clubs and Their Impact on Turkey Web3 Ecosystem
University’s blockchain clubs in Turkey have an incredible effect on blockchain awareness. Their events, content, and research helped many students to acknowledge what is blockchain and Web3 across the country. They organize and host events, create content like newsletters, podcasts, or videos, participate in hackathons & ideathons and develop apps and d’apps together. Community is “everything” when it comes to Web3, so collective learning is the major key here. And the university blockchain club’s impact has great importance to this learning process.
Coindesk Turkey has a great list of Blockchain Clubs in Turkey in their research on Web3 education. I will briefly mention the list of the blockchain clubs here, but I would like to remind you that every day a new blockchain club is being formed, which is really exciting:
UniveChain is a community established to bring all university clubs together to create the future of the ecosystem with solid foundations, owned by Kriptomeda. They are targeting to provide equality of opportunities with education, experience, and career studies covering the whole of Turkey.
Government’s Moves About Blockchain
The information and Communication Technologies Authority of Turkey, shortly BTK, has shown its interest and belief in blockchain technologies. BTK has made supportive statements about blockchain since 2018. BTK offers a free blockchain crash course open to everyone (alongside the other IT courses) and hosts events about blockchain technologies.
Also, Tükiye Digital Transformation Office recently hosted the first-ever Digital Turkey-themed blockchain hackathon, named Digitathon 2022. Participants were asked to develop “Digital Turkey’’ services with their skills in the field of blockchain infrastructure or submit them as a new idea in the competition, which will be held with the theme of e-Government Gateway services. e-Government service is a crucial system in Turkey. It would be a very important step to integrate blockchain technology into these services and this hackathon can be the primary step of this integration and transformation process.
TÜBİTAK, a government organization aiming to popularize science and technology in Turkey, has a Blockchain Research Laboratory. activities on infrastructure, installation, security and privacy analysis, business models, crowdfunding approaches, and various technical details of blockchain technologies, based on the needs of public and private institutions/organizations.
Academia & Books in Turkish
Even though published books are not the best way to follow technological developments (because every day is full of surprising progress in blockchain tech), they are great for learning the basics of concepts. There are many academic associates who work in blockchain research and published books but the number is not really high compared to other countries. Alongside the government, there are corporate organizations like Deloitte that research blockchain awareness in Turkey.
Alongside the research, government efforts, and educational players, there are many innovative Web3 startups in Turkey. There are many blockchain media foundations and it’s a great thing. Because people who have shown a new interest in blockchain can reach many resources easily, in their native language.
Web3 Media & Development & Offline Projects
Coindesk Türkiye: Coindesk is one of the leading news and insight sites on digital currencies and the Web3 world in general. CoinDesk was originally founded in 2013, and CoinDesk Turkey was founded in 2022.
Kriptomeda is a media company that invests in web3 media projects. Their investments are widely broad: Cointelegraph Turkey, Coinkolik.com, BTCHaber.com, BTCHaber TV, CoinBilgi.net, and Merkeziyetsiz Gelecek. All these enterprises share a similar mission: They provide content covering the future of money such as crypto money, blockchain, and decentralized applications.
Merkezsiz is a content formation focused on explaining decentralized systems in a simple, understandable way. They have a weekly email newsletter named “Merkezsiz Post”. They examine the impact of decentralized systems on every aspect of our lives every aspect. Such as design, communication, art, law, or civil society.
Lytera provides research reports for different areas of the Web3 world, based on real data. Lytera aims to offer clear information to the domestic crypto money ecosystem with in-depth research, far from speculation.
Ethylene is a blockchain technology studio providing solutions for developers, startups, and enterprises. They share their blockchain technology knowledge as an advisor and help companies with smart contracts and other development processes.
Chainway helps Web3 founders and hackers to build and scale products with their technology-driven approaches and they are targeting to serve as a crypto founder hub to gather top talents in Istanbul.
OpenPad is a community-run Web3 launchpad. OpenPad offers a no-fee and all-encompassing Web3 investment platform where retail investors become venture capitals and ideas become a revolution, empowering anyone to invest in highly-curated Web3 startups from any domain, including decentralized finance to gaming, real estate to the metaverse, digital collectibles to infrastructure, energy to the music industry.
Lunapark is an office space provided for Web3 projects in Turkey. They organize and host events and educational activities.
Altcointurk is one of the oldest blockchain communities in Turkey. Their offline space, Altcointurk Base, offers an open office and social living space and they host “Kripto Cuma” events every Friday with speakers and topics related to blockchain.
Innovative Blockchain Solutions & Projects:
BiLira is a company that created the first Turkish lira-backed stable coin TRYB, in Turkey. TRYB can be used in six blockchains, including Solana. They also offer free blockchain educational content for the Turkish community, especially students and student clubs. Being the gateway to the decentralized finance world, BiLira has further projects for Web3 development in Turkey. They are getting ready to launch their Web3 community, named Web.bi.
arf:
Arf connects fiat money, blockchain infrastructure, and crypto exchanges in a compliant manner using its “Layer 2” performance blockchain technology.
In a period when the average of international money transfer commissions is 7% and reaches 20% in developing countries, Arf aims to keep this rate primarily below 1% during the beta phase and to bring it to 0 in the future with ongoing agreements, with the technology it has developed for all money transfer corridors.”
yoorbit is the world’s first Rate-to-Earn social network. The platform allows its users to earn RATE tokens while rating and exploring anything about the searched product.
Ticketolia is a new project that targets to provide tickets in NFT form for metaverse events. Ticketolia is founded by SoftTech, one of the biggest development companies in Turkey.
Founded by a former product design team member in Opensea, Kalder is a new NFT marketplace. With the help of Kalder, brands are able to gamify their user’s engagement and tokenize community engagement.
ELYT:
ELYT creates a real value in NFT and with that, a connection forms between influencers, users, and brands. They explain themselves by saying “new generation of Customer Loyalty and Marketing Platform. “ Users can engage with the brand and get rewarded by NFTs, also they can support, collect, trade, and redeem their NFTs.
Hadi was a pop quiz gaming platform that gave Turkish lira rewards to winners and it was acquired by Colendi(a fintech and blockchain technology company that I mentioned before) and named their brand Hadi Crypto+ from Hadi. It’s one of the first Learn to Earn platforms in Turkey.
With a wallet connection, Talently App presents its users with a recruiting and networking platform in Web3.
TalentPass is a blockchain-based learn-and-earn platform. The platform allows its users to earn cryptocurrency and skill-based NFTs while discovering their strengths.
Colendi is a microcredit and credit scoring startup and now offers a blockchain-based solution. They acquired a startup called SETL and announced that they are working on creating a DeFi platform. Also, Colendi acquired a gamifying project named Hadi Crypto+ which I will mention again later.
D-Wallet is founded by Doğus Technology and it’s one of the first digital wallet projects of Turkey. D-Wallet enables the use of the loyalty tokens accumulated in the wallet, by converting them into a digital value, for purchases made from brands that are included in the decentralized and integrated structure and suitable for various lifestyles. D-Wallet is preparing to become one of the lead institutions and developing professional solutions for Web 3 and Blockchain technologies.
CEXs found in Turkey
Sadly, there have been some shady practices and money laundering schemes with crypto exchanges in Turkey. In regards to that, some Turkish people are far from investing in cryptocurrencies. But the good news is, there are still a good amount of cryptocurrency users in Turkey. And even if these exchanges are centralized, I think they are worth mentioning in this ecosystem map because cryptocurrencies are Turkey’s most important aspect of Web3 adaptation. Here is the list of central cryptocurrency exchanges founded and still actively working in Turkey:
BtcTurk, founded on 1 July 2013, was the first Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading platform in Turkey and the fourth to launch worldwide. BtcTurk is founded and managed by Elliptik Yazilim ve Ticaret A.Ş.
Paribu is one of the market leaders in Turkey as a crypto exchange. Also, they have a VC named Paribu Ventures, a cinema partnership with Mars Cinema named Paribu Cineverse, and art partnerships such as X Media Art Museum.
Bitlo aims to provide an easy, fast, and for all our users to trade cryptocurrencies. Their first priority is to have a user-friendly interface for easy trading for Turkish people.
Bitexen is established in Turkey and operates in the technology development zone of ITU ARI Teknokent. It is an online digital asset trading platform and it’s really important to note that it’s developed in one of the leading universities in Turkey.
ICRYPEX is one of the Turkish cryptocurrency exchanges that creates a platform for trading various cryptocurrencies. It is a crypto money platform that was established in 2018 with a corporate structure in Turkey, has its own nodes, trading and matching engines, and manages its own order book. Also, they hosted an important blockchain event in İstanbul named Kriptofest.
BitUBU is a professional crypto exchange designed according to users’ needs. The platform has all the necessary features and tools to make users’ trading more convenient and secure.
Bitci is a national crypto exchange and Bitci provides a personal portfolio for real-time realized and unrealized gain and loss monitoring from a single website.
Felixo is a Bitcoin trading platform founded in 2018 by a team of blockchain developers. Felixo, one of the first professional platforms to include next-generation payment systems, brings investors together with crypto assets in an easy, fast, and secure way in Turkey and all of them have been developed by a team of Turkish engineers.
ReFi
ReFi, Regenarative Finance, is a new economic approach that aims to create positive changes for the world as well as financial returns with the help of blockchain technology. In Turkey, discussion and development around ReFi are on the rise these days.
Uçurtma Project is a platform that intends to help students find the financial support they need to achieve their dreams with the help of blockchain technology. It provides a decentralized guarantee that students and supporters can get support by bringing them together.
ReFi Türkiye Program is an initiative to design a new economy that will repair the world through the impact ecosystem with the help of the Web3 transformation. In this process designed by Akbank LAB and imece, the program aims to explore the intersection of financial systems and impact ecosystems together. ReFi Türkiye organized a ReFi hackathon on last October and contiunies to creating content related to ReFi.
S.O.S Chain is the blockchain fund for disasters and rapid humanitarian crises around the world. It is a fully on-chain parametric fundraising platform for charitable causes. S.O.S Chain makes it possible to create a blockchain-based infrastructure for launching funds to react to disasters and humanitarian crises in a timely and transparent fashion.
XYZ Tech is a blockchain-focused FinTech/RegTech company. The company developed a compliant equity and debt-based crowdfunding platform for major banks and brokerage firms as their first product. Nowadays they are launching their compliant digital asset custody, trade, and DeFi access infrastructure targeting traditional financial institutions in multiple jurisdictions including Turkey, MENA, and Switzerland.
NFTs & Their Communities
Turkey’s first multidisciplinary NFT collection Beeing Hope NFT community intends to save endangered bees in Turkey, due to the recent wildfires caused by the global climate crisis. The collection is featured 10.080 artworks with 28 creators from different fields of art.
Space Runners is the first Metaverse Fashion brand in the form of NFTs in collaboration with artists and brands. They design digitally wearable NFTs through AR and plug-ins into the Metaverse as items. Space Runners is one of the first Web3 fashion startups in the world, alongside Turkey.
Ninja Squad is an NFT and crypto trading community, with a focus on education, gaming, and innovating utilities for NFTs. What started as an 8,888 piece NFT collection in November 2021 has since been evolving into a larger technology and lifestyle brand harnessing IRL and metaverse components. They state their mission as enabling financial freedom for their community through Web3, crypto, and NFT education.
Rock’n’Verse purpose is to be the meeting point for rock and metal music bands, solo artists, music lovers, and fan groups from all over the world. They are establishing an incubation center for brand new and rooted rock & metal music bands. The incubation targets to accelerate the musicians’ transition to the music NFTs and metaverse ecosystem.
DAOs
LaykaDAO, formerly known as Luna DAO, is Turkey’s first DAO. They aim to bring projects and people in Web3 together, educate people on Web3 subjects and form the first real decentralized organization in Turkey.
KimlikDAO is still in the project phase, it targets to create an NFT ID card that people can carry in their own crypto wallet. With this ID, people can effortlessly sign in to all supporting financial apps (apps and dApps), while financial apps can fulfill their KYC obligations.
BanklessDAO is a decentralized media community and they have one mission, in their own words: “Help the world #gobankless.” It’s a media and social DAO that onboarded 1 billion people to cryptocurrencies. They produce content in their email newsletter and social media accounts.
Web3 NGO’s & Communities
Web3 Teknolojileri Derneği: Web3 Teknolojileri Derneği is an NGO that aims to bring blockchain communities together and creates. training and awareness activities about Web3 in Turkey. Recently, they published a manifest named “Transparent Consumption” with the participation of the 32 blockchain communities. They also host blockchain events, hackathons, and webinars. Recently they formed The Women3 Program which strives to build a women-led ecosystem in the Web3 ecosystem.
The mission of the community is to organize social responsibility projects that will maintain positive discrimination against women in terms of technology and blockchain, and increase women’s presence in the IT sector in order to ensure that women are more involved in the production economy.
“BlockchainIST (Blockchain Istanbul) Center” is the first university research and development center in Turkey for Blockchain Technology, hosted by Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. They provide consultancy and education to private and public sectors, NGOs, and universities around the world.
Crypto Female aims to increase women’s technology literacy levels in IT. They are bringing people together that are active, especially in Web3, and holding education, workshops, seminars, and similar events. CryptoFemale is currently available in Turkey, California, and India.
CryptOps Türkiye — Merkeziyetsiz Haber:
CryptOps is a global Web3 agency, experienced in community, social media, and content management. In Turkey, it serves as an initiative founded to scale up blockchain projects and personalize community experiences. CryptOps Turkey has its Web3 media website named Merkeziyetsiz Haber.
CryptoMondays Türkiye team organizes events every Monday, all blockchain enthusiasts are invited to their meetings in Ankara and İstanbul.
I tried to show a wide range of Web3 related organizations in Türkiye. I hope it helps people with understanding the Turkey Web3 ecosystem. I’m optimistic about the ecosystem and I think it will continue to grow bigger with the help of the government, academia, and Web3 communities in Turkey.
I really enjoyed the research and writing processes and learned many new projects with this journey, thanks to Superteam Türkiye!
References
https://twitter.com/saruhanoguzhan/status/1491455557802524672
https://webrazzi.com/2022/11/07/dogus-teknoloji-den-web3-adimi-grubun-yeni-kripto-cuzdani-d-wallet/
Other references are shown in the essay as links.
