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After San Salvador, Bangui, bitcoin capital! Regardless of the doubts about the technical feasibility, the criticisms of the supposed hidden objectives or the price that has been unscrewing for six months, the Central African president has not given up on making his country an unexpected precursor to cryptocurrencies.
A month after making bitcoin an official digital currency of the Central African Republic (CAR), President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, a mathematics professor whose calculations continue to baffle, announced on May 23 the launch for ” soon ” of the project « Sango – The First Crypto Initiative [la première initiative crypto] – intended to set a visionary milestone on the world map (…)a revolution that will reposition the economy, improve prospects and change the destiny of citizens”.
In the terms of the press release from the presidency, as on the brochure offered on the Sango.org site, the ambition seems disproportionate while the country is struggling to emerge from the civil war, that a little more than 15% of the population access to electricity and that the coffers of the State are drying up as external budgetary support (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, France, European Union) withdraws for fear of seeing their subsidies end up in the pockets of mercenaries of the Wagner Group, the government’s first security partner.
Sango, which is also the name of the national language of the CAR, would therefore plan to make this country “the first legal crypto hub”, a financial paradise without income and corporate taxes, where bitcoin exchanges will no longer be taxed and where the acquisition of Central African nationality and land will be facilitated for digital investors. To give even more luster to the initiative, the construction of a “Crypto Island” on the banks of the Oubangui, with state-of-the-art infrastructure, artificial lakes and beaches, has been announced… but without a delivery date.
“A huge bullshit! »
After a brief trip to Dubai in mid-May, the objective of which, according to the specialist letter AfricaIntelligence to formalize the opening of a “mining” company intended to produce cryptocurrency, the Central African government has in recent days invited a small group of “bitcoiners” from France, Canada and El Salvador. Accompanied by the former socialist deputy of Gard and president of the international affairs section of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council Jean-Marie Cambaceresthese were received on Thursday 26 May by the Central African Head of State.
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