# From Lira to Ledger Where Blockchain-Based CBDCs Fit in a Stablecoin World — Mete Koray G. | node101

- Channel: [ETH Belgrade Community](https://streameth.org/eth-belgrade-community)
- Date: 2026-10-06
- Duration: 25:11
- Topics: People & Blogs
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-_QL-X-Gl7xs
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QL-X-Gl7xs

## Transcript

Thank you so much. And um throughout today, I also tried hard to um be here and just follow every single uh presentation. It was really beautiful and fulfilled day. So, thank you uh for all this beautiful lineup. It's also great to be in this center of the balcons uh by myself. I'm really happy that I'm here and talking this narrative to you. So it's going to be uh not technical but mostly uh storytelling because uh here um this thing is an issue that has been going on to be solved for years by now and in these years of course the world changed. There were new technologies arised in the world and also uh the future of the Turkish lra and so currencies are also affected by these changes. So um yeah I'm Mete uh I'm one of the co-founders of Node 101 which is one of the blockchain uh solution provider companies that is based in uh Istanul and Pice and we should dive in with what is a CBDC actually is and how we just ended up needing this CBDCS in the mid of uh 2010s. So basically because of the uh digital um digitalization of the whole world uh we just started to use the cash less than it should be less than we were using. And in the meantime, the uh payment systems also uh had to improved to be more resilient. And in the digital finance uh we needed to have some kind of a public settlement places to be able to give a platform to uh national currencies and this is why there were some CBDC's projects arosed throughout the world and uh this is the digital central bank money. So basically uh you are just then nominated the currency through this tokens let's say in our own language and um this whole thing was just about just settling the whole um surveying currencies in a digital form. So when we take a look at to the global uh CBDC landscape, you can easily see that there are lots of projects uh from the Americans to uh the Asia from Europe to Russia to Nigeria to Turkey. So uh the Turkish story is important for us of course. So the digital Turkish uh leader journey started uh ideally in 2017 and after that it just um even written down in the uh elections in 2018. So it's a really old project and throughout this almost 10 years of journey we have seen lots of um Turkish government uh establishments or related establishments to dive into this journey and try to find a way to solve this problem and uh see let us see the digital Turkish lera. But uh at the same time of course the world also changed. we are not in the world that we have uh that the digital Turkish are born in 10 years ago. So uh CBDC's were were designed for these old worlds, old order. But in the meantime, uh here uh these people just changed it with also uh related with these Ethereum arisings and other sing other platforms arose. And in the meantime, stable coins also created by these platforms and their architectures and they created a new world and this is why CBDC's were uh a bit old-fashioned and stable. Why? Because stable coins uh basically stable uh to dollar and you can just uh reach out to this stable asset uh anytime anywhere which is a groundbreaking thing for most of the cases and you can just do it uh and get it through every single channel and it's on open uh blockchain distributed uh places. So it's it's also important and uh stable coins is uh stable coins are this infrastructure um earthquake that happened uh when we were talking about CBDC's but it wasn't enough to change our perceptions to CBDC's. So um of course this uh after what happened uh the last elections in in the United States uh most of you can remember that throughout 2024 uh there was a cold war between uh the White House and Fed basically uh they just wanted to decrease uh the interest rate that was controlled. soely by fat in order to be in order to get more depth from the uh uh markets and just pour down to uh the government's need. But since you cannot control the administration level of fat because you don't have the authority to do that uh you cannot get what you want and in the meantime uh since the whole stable coin issuers and all these blockchain uh giant American companies were lobbying for years that uh this genius act to be uh passed by the senate. Eventually, this genius act also came as uh a savior for the white house to find a way to break the monopoly of fat on interest rates. Why? because you uh after the genius act can basically tell to your secretary of treasury give me 300 billions of worth of uh short-term US bonds there will be uh the um demand from it from you know circle from the other stable coin issuer companies and it's also benefitable for circle why because you are just holding it for three months and after that three months another three months etc etc and this is how you can create a trillion dollar of external money that you can just use anywhere to in order to help your people I don't know so this genius act just created a new uh way of um seeing uh the uh monetary politics in the United States which is also affected the future of the CBDC's Why? Because if you play on stable coins, you cannot let the classical CBDC uh idea leave true. Why? Because CBDC is directly controlled by central banks. So you cannot let central banks to uh build their own CBDC solutions which will directly be the enemy of the stable coins. So uh this is why we see this and this is why we have to just stop it as white house right so uh you can just remember uh the uh last year's August um white house report which was called the future of America crypto in that over 160 uh pages of uh report there was a two lines of um reading which was really important. Basically, white house just said that they were not going to let CBDC and American CBDC work in the United States and overseas. So this is basically saying that we are not going to see the CBDC's anymore. So this is why uh for the last 12 months in for example Turkey in whenever you go to banks whenever you go to some financial summits or financial uh places that you have been uh talking with the people they say that oh CBDCs are done. uh but at the same time what has been born is a ne global monetary system that is uh a ne uh kind of American dream. So why on ethereum on drone on uh Solana there are lots of uh infrastructures that we can just uh issue our own stable dollars stable euros so stable Turkish dollars as well right but with genius if you would like to um let your um stable coins to be used by American companies or Americans you need to have an entity inside the country which will eventually uh if we just of course I'm seeing all this as a aggressive realist way someday a new administration just came up uh could came up and just say that Tron is a Chinese chain. I don't want to see stable dollars on TR. there is only one thing that you can do which is not issuing your stable dollar to throne anymore. So basically this is a really hard powered soft power which is the NE American monetary dream. I love it. I love this way of you know seeing the f of of course this is all about speculations. You just understood me of course that we have been speculating here. So in that um we have these all these informations and uh this just led us that there's no CBDC and there is going to be lots of stable coonization in the whole world. So uh this is how we just ended up that there is no barrier for hyperdollization if stable coin yields will bring this clarity. So what does it mean? If with the clarity acts, if with the following acts, we could be able to get some yields with using our stable um dollars. That means that we can just uh get seven point maybe sometimes 10 points of yields if we can just hold and work our stable uh dollars. So if you uh can be able to reach out to stable coins and get high uh yields from your house in uh Bgrade, there is no thing that's stopping you from uh just take that opportunity. So uh this is why actually uh we just wanted to ask the question uh to uh the people about this like uh I just started to ask this question from my father for example. I just said uh would you choose uh to put your money to local deposits like Serbin dinar deposit for example while you can be able to uh reach out to these stable dollars and get higher yields. Of course my father just said that of course no I would just go and just put my money to a stable coin which means uh a US bond. So uh this is the thing can we just uh talk with the SE sector leaders about this and for example uh Jeremy said that yeah you know technology is arising this is why we have been trying to find a way to just um enroll with the talks and just let uh the governments understand that the world is changing and at the same time Thomas also just said that this is also a speculation but He also believed that this hyperdollization is going to prevail and Ethereum is going to be the platform that this hyperdollization is going to exist. Um but uh this cannot be the only rhetoric that we can just rely on because if there is no Turkish lera there is no bosor spirit. If there is no Turkish lat, there is no um Turkish tourism or Turkish you know way. So if there is no Serbian dinar, there is no uh bridge of the bridges of the beautiful, you know, Bgra bridges for example. So we need to find a way to deal with this system. We need to find a way to um just rethink about our Turkish lera and make it uh compliant with this new u monetary system and also let uh the the issuers the planners of this system also benefit this system. So it should be a win-win win-win scenario. So we are not uh talking about anything to stop this. No. Uh this is like the fundamental uh thing of being a Turk is about just creating a balance and just creating to find the opportunity while the world is changing. So this is why uh we uh just started conversation with Tubac which is uh the Turkish national science and research center of the government. every any single technological project is going to be asked to that establishment in Turkey and they had a momentum with uh the Turkish central bank about this project. So we just started up uh teamed up with them and just give them that there is a possible uh other world you should go and talk with Italianarian foundation. This is why we just bring people from Metarium Foundation to Turkey. Bring uh people from SUI to Turkey. Bring people from Cosmos Labs to Turkey and Babylon to Turkey. So we just wanted to make sure that okay yeah American companies yes Chinese companies they are coming they just teaching you how what can you do with blockchains just take it easy. And this is how uh we just also started to build and designed uh other versions of the digital Turkish lera which is going to be a blockchain based one. So uh we can uh make it compliant with um make it reachable uh from metarium from Solana from drone where this NE uses etc USD stable dollars are going to be issued it should be on the same not on the same platform but on the same level so this is why digital Turkish lura should have been redesigned as a blockchain layered one So uh I'm not going to uh tell you about the technical details uh of this um you know modules that we have been uh thinking and designing. Uh but uh there is going to be uh the overall uh understanding of it. So in the settlement layer in the first layer there will be uh always a soity of anara. So we will uh continue to just do these elections will be lots of uh government uh organisms uh you know the state organisms and it's going to be the one that controls who are going to validate this chain who can be the validator it can be Turkish banks it can be Turkish companies can be Turkish e-commerce giants and it can be also a Serbian bank it can also uh American bank as well in the future. It it's not important. The important thing is that uh this layer is going to be uh designed uh by uh the regulators in Ankara let's say. Uh so in this uh layer uh we are just imagining uh the whole compliance controls, identity and privacy checks uh that is done by the international uh regulators as it should be. There will be no uh there will be lots of um international collaborations on this layer to be able to see a really successful and strong Turkish era. And the second layer of it is about institutions and the gateway. So uh this lera should be uh accessible by uh private sectors u in the first layer also there are going to be the validators of course in this uh new turkish era but in this one uh if you are a payment company if you are a fintech company if you are a e-commerce giants like Amazon or trendial the Turkish versions of Amazon you need to be able to uh be in this layer to uh put uh and launch your own uh products financial uh products. So um the tokenized assets of the country of the other um countries and tokenized assets in finance in real estate that should be on digital Turkish there. So um blockchain native companies also also could be able to build their own and launch their own uh products in uh this uh digital Turkish blockchain based digital Turkish tra. So the most of one of the most important issues in the that the Turkish companies has been facing is about crossber settlement payment issue. So the effects costs are really high. So this is why this should be one of the way to just raise this uh problem once and for all. If we also see uh the other you know for example golf uh companies as the first layer as validators in this model. So of course the uh the final layer is about us how we just reach out to this uh blockchain. So the use cases are quite um obvious. So we just say that if you would like to uh get a credit onchain credit you can just show your real estates as your collateral. How can you do that? We have a electronical state system. the whole country's um uh bonds, the whole you written uh things that shows that this uh field is yours is completely written to internet in Turkey for example. You can make your securityization and you can do the tokenization on digital Turkish L platform and you can just show that you own these properties in Turkey and you can just apply for credits in the future. for example. Uh this is also uh we believe that would create some uh additional interest to the Turkish assets that would bring uh higher foreign direct investments to uh Turkish economy. So the other thing for example um let's uh we we think that there could be some uh future that a German citizen can put their USDC's on a Turkish bank uh yield on digital Turkish platform. So it's all about just trying to find the best way to show the end user the best opportunity is going to be held on Turkish LRA platform. The other thing um the the Islamic uh finance is already outreach $7 trillion. So um since there are lots of shario compliant um reports that shows that if uh you see the emission rates written down it's it can be halal. So blockchain can be halal if you are not using um you know betting uh platforms on uh this blockchain for example which is betting is uh not that legal in Turkey for example. This is also one of the uh side good cases of this project. You can just position and you can uh target the Islamic finance. You can just say that hey we have this bank we are just giving uh you three% of not interest rate but reward on uh a stable dollar. Would you be interested Riat? I'm sure there will be lots of people interested in this in uh any uh Islamic state in nearby of Turkey which also we have the soft power of being the you know brothers and neighbors. So uh um and the other thing is about this uh lower crossber settlement issue. If we uh find a way to uh just get uh validator and the um product owners in the region uh as as one of the partners in this uh digital toa uh the crossber settlement uh costs are also going to be down. So uh these are one of the uh some of the uh use cases that we have uh shown. Uh yeah, we believe that Tukia can uh make this work. Um it's um you know the world is changing uh and there are going to be uh maybe some regional hinterlands that are going to be shared uh in the coming future both economically both politically and in this uh upcoming world. We believe that politically the countries who are trying to be in the middle at least as much as possible can also benefit by creating some platforms that also meet these needs and be in the middle uh of these newly arising economical horses. So uh we believe that privacy solutions uh on digital Turkish das al also can be uh part of the solutions between energy trade of the European Union and Russia in the coming future because there are going to be lots of other sanctions that can be possessed by the overseas. Uh so these kind of um speculative um thoughts and speculative [snorts] uh way of thinking are just um let us start uh to think this uh CBDC's again and make it try to make it at least just fire the flame you know uh to find a way to deal with this newly rising stable coinization stable coin world. So um these are all our doubts by the way. These are not like official central bank or tubac views. Uh these are completely our own speculations. Uh I really would like to uh thank you for uh you to listen me at the end of today. I hope you enjoyed it at this. >> Thank you. Round of applause.