The nearly 75 million residents of Turkey will be unable to use PayPal to pay for online goods starting June 6th, 2016. PayPal’s decision to pull out of Turkey resulted from the expiration of a required financial license. Rather than risk the ire of Turkey’s financial regulator, PayPal will withdraw from Turkey. Users will only be able to withdraw existing funds from their account to Turkish banks.It is very likely that PayPal and Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) will come to terms in the future and Turkish residents will be able to use PayPal to pay for international goods and services once again; however, until that time comes, many individuals and especially businesses are looking for a new legal international payment method to depend on for business and internet shopping.

You can always use Bitcoin to pay for VPN

While the cryptocurrency Bitcoin has proven to be effective for domestic payments, local fiat currency remains king. The combination of the network effect, the force of a government’s military, and international precedence means that this is unlikely to change in the near future. For international payments, though, things are a little more muddled. The world financial system functions like a hodgepodge jungle of veritable walled gardens. To move from one walled garden to the next requires fees. In turn, PayPal charges these fees to users because of very real regulatory compliance costs. Even if they wanted to pay those fees, the end user in Turkey is now unable to use PayPal to pay for their VPN service – but they will still be able to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is usable anywhere that the internet reaches. In combination with vpn usage, it is possible to easily defeat internet censorship.

You will be able to use Bitcoin to pay for pretty much anything

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkey imports the most goods from China, Germany, America, and Russia. All four of those countries are strong bastions of cryptocurrency use. In countries like Germany and America especially, services like PayPal are still preferred by users. However, at the fringes of the world’s interconnected financial system – such as a country of nearly 75 million – cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are incredibly useful at least as a medium of exchange between the fiat currencies of two countries. Exactly when you will be able to buy anything with Bitcoin remains to be seen. Government action such as Turkey’s always accelerate the timeline of Bitcoin adoption, though.