Central African Republic unveils its own digital currency
Reading time:
10 min
On July 3, the president of the Central African Republic (CAR), Faustin-Archange Touadéra, unveiled Sango Coin, a national cryptocurrency, at a virtual Sango Genesis Event, reports The Block.
According to President Touadéra, the state-owned cryptocurrency will modernize the country's infrastructure and become a “gateway to the CAR's natural resources”. Earlier, the country's government announced plans to tokenize the country's natural resources, including oil, diamonds, and copper.
Sango Coin will be the next-generation currency for the Central African Republic, the African country's president said.
At the Sango Genesis Event, the CAR president unveiled plans for the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The plan is to use cryptocurrency to create a crypto economy based on private investment. The plan also wants to create a “crypto-island” on the Ubangi River.
Touadéra hopes to enable citizens to have access to modern financial technology so that they can easily use cryptocurrencies through their smartphone.
Citizens will live in a country with full economic development, which means jobs and prosperity. In addition, virtual transactions, unlike traditional banking transactions, have the advantages of quick access and execution, lack of bureaucracy and low transaction costs, said the CAR president.
The country's finance minister, Hervé Ndoba, said the national digital currency is backed by bitcoin, but did not disclose details of the mechanism. It might be a bitcoin-backed cryptocurrency.
The CAR government is also using blockchain to digitize its land registry system.
The CAR authorities are actively developing the state's cryptocurrency activities. For example, in April 2022, the country approved bitcoin as a means of payment on a par with the local franc.
And last week, it also became known about the CAR authorities' plans to create a cryptocurrency hub and a special economic zone in the meta-village.
