Can BTC Benefit From Trump Firing Powell? Turkey’s Lira Crisis May Provide Clues

The week has begun on an attention-grabbing notice, with the U.S. greenback crashing to three-year lows alongside losses on Wall Street, but bitcoin, which normally follows the sentiment on Wall Street, stands tall.

This may simply be the start.

The shift away from the USD and towards seizure and censorship-resistant belongings like BTC and stablecoins may speed up if President Donald Trump follows via together with his reported plans to fireside Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, which have pushed the DXY and U.S. inventory markets decrease right now.

That’s the lesson from Turkey, which has seen its forex, the lira (TRY), collapse through the years primarily as a consequence of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated interference within the central financial institution’s operations. The sliding lira has triggered a capital flight into BTC and stablecoins since a minimum of 2020-21.

Trump’s points with the Fed

Trump has feuded publicly with the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, for years, criticizing Powell for being too late on fee cuts even throughout his first time period when rates of interest had been means decrease than right now.

However, Trump’s criticism has lately reached a fever pitch with studies suggesting he’s on the lookout for methods to eliminate Powell, who lately warned of stagflation even because the President reiterated requires decrease borrowing prices whereas suggesting there is no such thing as a inflation.

Powell’s affected person strategy follows a commerce war-led spike in survey-based measures of inflation expectations, which may all the time turn out to be self-fulfilling.

Still, on Monday, Trump went additional, calling Powell a “major loser” and warning that the economic system may decelerate until rates of interest are instantly lowered.

Lesson From Turkey

Erdogan started interfering within the central financial institution’s operations in 2019, and since then, the lira has collapsed sevenfold from 5.3 per greenback to 38 per greenback.

It all began with Turkey’s inflation fee reaching double digits in 2017. It remained elevated within the subsequent yr, which prompted the nation’s central financial institution to enhance the one-week repo fee from 17.5% to 24% in September 2018.

The transfer doubtless did not go effectively with Erodgan, who issued the primary decree dismissing Central Bank of Turkey (CBT) governor Murat Cetinkaya in July 2019. From then on till the top of 2021, Erdogan issued a number of decrees dismissing and hiring a number of CBT officers. Amid all this, inflation remained elevated, and the lira continued to depreciate at an alarming fee.

“We certainly don’t believe in high interest rates. We will pull down inflation and exchange rates with low-rate policy … High rates make the rich richer, the poor poorer. We won’t let that happen,” Erdogan mentioned in 2021.

As of 2025, Turkey faces an inflation fee of practically 40%, based on information supply TradingEconomics.

This episode serves as a cautionary story for Trump, highlighting that tampering with central financial institution independence — particularly within the face of looming inflation — can erode investor confidence and ship the home forex right into a tailspin.

This doesn’t essentially imply that the USD will crash precisely like lira however might even see important devaluation.

Perhaps it may show much more destabilizing for international markets, contemplating the greenback is a world reserve forex, and the U.S. Treasury market is the bedrock for worldwide finance.

If higher sense fails to prevail, U.S. traders could really feel incentivized to maneuver away from U.S. belongings and into BTC and different various investments, simply as Turks did.