The Central African Republic is launching a project for its own cryptocurrency and crypto hub
The Central African Republic (CAR) officially launched on Sunday the construction of its own cryptocurrency, Sango, and the future “first African cryptocurrency hub” with “zero taxation”.
Two months after making his country the second in the world after El Salvador, which used bitcoin as an official currency – alongside the CFA franc – and legalized the use of cryptocurrencies, President Faustin Archange Touadéra announced at an “online event” for to launch “a new digital system powered by Blockchain technology.”
No concrete details were given about the modalities and timetable for the creation of this “Sango Coin” and a “Crypto Island”, a platform that allows this virtual currency to be the “catalyst for the tokenization of the enormous natural resources” of the Central African Republic.
This “Sango initiative”, named after the official language alongside French, comes in the midst of the global cryptocurrency crisis, where the price of bitcoin is in free fall and many crypto platforms are facing bankruptcy.
Touadéra lamented that Africa, “where 57% of the population is without banks”, suffers from an obvious lack of “infrastructure” that makes “financial services almost inaccessible to many citizens”, Touadéra claimed “having found the solution”: “the smartphone” to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies.
“The smartphone is the alternative to traditional banking, cash and financial bureaucracy,” said the president of the second least developed country in the world, according to the UN, where only 14.3% of the more than 5 million inhabitants have access to electricity by 2022, and even less to the Internet, of which 71% live below the international poverty line (less than $ 1.90 per day) and more than half need humanitarian assistance, according to the World Bank.
“The Central African Republic sits on a mountain of untapped wealth,” including gold, diamonds, rare metals, and “Sango Coin will be direct access to our resources for the world” to attract investors and “jump start the engines of the economy,” excited head of state.
By the end of April, the use of bitcoin as a reference currency had created confusion and disapproval from an international community that had already accused Touadera’s power of handing over its country to Russia and to the “mercenaries” of the sulfur-containing Wagner. of “plundering” resources in exchange for military support against the rebels.
The Central African Republic has been bloody since 2013 of a very deadly civil war, which, however, has slowed in intensity since 2018.
