Central African Republic rolls out Sango Coin
The Central African Republic (CAR), which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender earlier this year, has just announced that Sango Coin, a new crypto project, will become the country’s national cryptocurrency.
The President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, announced that the coin would be country’s national cryptocurrency during an online event, saying that he has “always wanted to leave something precious as legacy to future generations”.
Acknowledging the lack of resources that an estimated 57 per centt of the African population have, especially to banking services, he hopes modern technologies such as cryptocurrencies provide solutions to this challenge and improve the access for future generations saying that Sango Coin will be “the currency for the next generation” and his vision “is to educate the youth so that it embraces new technologies, and also cryptocurrencies”.
The president said that Sango Coin would bring benefits to its citizens such as facilitating cross-border investments and purchases across Africa and believes that the coin will be the “next-generation currency for Central African Republic”.
The plan to roll out Sango Coin comes at a difficult time for the crypto market as the market capitalization of digital assets has dropped by about $2 trillion since late 2021, with Bitcoin’s value dropping more than 55 per cent since the beginning of the year.
Despite the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund having concerns about the lack of transparency and other financial issues this may bring, Touadéra is confident this is what needs to happen. Mr Touadéra said that “The Central African Republic sits on a mountain of resources — gold, diamonds, rare minerals, unexploited resources. Sango Coin will enable the direct access to our resources for the whole world”.
