The First Eurasia Blockchain Summit Sees Turkey Becoming a Blockchain Powerhouse

Press Release ISTANBUL, Oct. 22, 2019

The first-ever Eurasia Blockchain Summit, hosted by Huobi Group and Kemer Partners, was held last weekend and hosted a medley of local and overseas representatives to talk about a “blockchain revolution” already taking place in the region. 1,400+ attendees and 70+ speakers from leading blockchain companies, Turkish Government and banking sectors, startups, and media joined the discussion. The two-day event saw major companies disclose ambitions to participate in the booming market, including a pioneering move by Huobi to announce development plans underway for a Turkish Lira (TRY) fiat gateway in Turkey. 

The Lira on-ramp is set to launch by the end of 2019 with a TRY/USDT pairing, enabling retail users to easily access more assets and greater liquidity. Regional President of Huobi Group Mohit Davar elaborated on Huobi’s future plans for Turkey and the importance of local involvement: “We need partners on the ground and we need people on the ground. Beginning with Huobi’s landmark introduction of TRY/USDT fiat channel, and continuing with lowering transaction fees and the benchmark to participate in Huobi Prime for Turkish users, we plan to demonstrate our deep commitment to the community via localized approaches directly from our team in Istanbul.” 

Huobi Group CFO, Chris Lee, made his appearance at the summit and declared that: “Turkey, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina, Venezuela, and Vietnam are upcoming players in the crypto market.” 

During the opening speech, host and Kemer Partners co-founder Arfat Cenk Erkin predicted that: “Turkey will soon lead as a hub for blockchain development across the European and Asian regions, and this transformation is set to be one of the most critical technological developments for our country.” Resonating the sentiment, Ahmet Cüneyt Selçuk, Chief Project Director at Investment Office of the Presidency of Turkey, said: “We invite you to invest in Turkey for…a maturing ecosystem backed by supportive reforms, increasing R&D and innovation activities by multinational companies, young population with high penetration rates for new technologies, continuous investment in diversified sectors, and opportunities to co-invest with the Turkish Treasury.”

Leading DeFi services & tech providers also made announcements at the summit, including intentions to expand their services to Turkey. BHEX Global Managing Director Tyler Wu announced the launch of BHEX’s innovative “Contracts Cloud” service, which will propel the fast development of the contract trading market, especially for the mid to small-size exchanges. BHEX Cloud serves 120 Partners with 5 million end-users with custody of more than 6 billion USD worth of assets, and will also be open to Turkish partners. 

On the first day of the summit, Stella Kung, CMO of the open-source blockchain network Qtum, revealed that the foundation had launched its Qtum 2.0 mainnet through a hard fork at block height 466,600 on October 17th, marking Qtum’s first major upgrade since its mainnet launch in 2017. 

Waykichain CEO Gordon Gao announced its all-inclusive public chain ecosystem and Waykichain stablecoin. According to Gordon’s speech, WaykiChain’s stablecoin WUSD could bring massive adoption of blockchain technology with its three token system. And the WaykiChain ecosystem, with its advanced technology and its various funding program, is going to lead the way for a new generation of public chain. 

Commenting on the success of the conference, CEO & founder of DreamChain said: “Efforts from the top leaders in the industry such as Huobi to help build a more mature market in regions like Turkey is exactly what we need in the market, and we will continue to support such efforts as we fulfill our responsibilities to supporting projects to deliver what they promised to the community.”

“Given a large part of the Turkish population already having its first touch points with blockchain technology, the barriers of entry for more applications are significantly reduced,” said Fouad Soultana, COO of Novem Gold AG. “Turkey has a positive future ahead of it with the rapid growth of its Fintech market.”

The inaugural Eurasia Blockchain Summit saw notable attendances from Turkey’s Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Çetin Ali Dönmez, Professor at Cornell University Emin Gün Sirer, COSO of CoinShares Meltem Demirors, CEO of BKM Soner Canko, and Finance Professor at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dr. Vedat Akgiray. The summit also hosted the largest gathering of Huobi executives at a global conference, of which included CFO of Huobi Group Chris Lee, President of Huobi University Jianing Yu, CEO of Huobi Research Yuming Yuan, COO of Huobi Global Alan Sun, Chief of Staff at Huobi Group Ciara Sun, Head of Europe and Americas Josh Goodbody, and more.

About Huobi Group

Huobi Group is a global blockchain company with six years of experience in cryptocurrency trading and asset management. Today it provides services to millions of retail and institutional clients in over 130 countries. The company’s Huobi Global exchange has accumulated more than $2 trillion in volume, and is ranked as a top three exchange by daily volume. Its native Huobi Token (HT) is ranked in the top 15 crypto assets by market cap. For more info, visit www.hbg.com

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