TL;DR

The Central African Republic pursued three crypto initiatives despite widespread instability and poverty.
Sango Coin failed to attract promised investment and deliver on its economic plans.
The $CAR meme token exhibited high volatility with governance and manipulation concerns.

Over the past three years, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s government has pushed a chain of crypto policies in the Central African Republic. Officials frame the agenda as a path to economic growth, modernization, and national development. A report built on publicly traceable evidence, however, describes red flags around how crypto gets used, who drives the projects, and who captures the upside.

Since 2022, the administration has advanced three main tracks: granting Bitcoin legal-tender status, launching a state-backed coin called Sango Coin, and later promoting a meme-style token known as $CAR. All of it unfolds amid political instability, armed violence, and a shrinking civic space. 

At the same time, daily life in the country remains shaped by displacement, insecurity, and poverty, while access to electricity, mobile service, and internet stays limited. Under conditions like those, broad citizen participation in crypto markets becomes unrealistic.

The report also links the crypto push to wider political developments: tighter executive control, stronger influence from foreign actors, and a drive to monetize natural resources. The legal-tender move made the country the second in the world to take that step. International financial institutions, regional banking regulators, and the country’s Constitutional Court criticized the decision. 

Later amendments removed bitcoin’s legal-tender status, yet new laws still opened a route for tokenizing land and resources through blockchain systems without strong governance safeguards.

Sango Coin: selling access, tokenized land, and promises without delivery

In mid-2022, the government rolled out Sango Coin and marketed it as a large economic project. The pitch offered foreign investors access to land, e-residency, and investment paths tied to mining and forestry. Officials also promoted major infrastructure plans, including a “Crypto City.”

Only a small share of the intended token supply sold, and many promised outcomes did not materialize in verifiable form. The design also targeted online investors with capital and access, while much of the population lacked the basic services needed to use digital assets in everyday life.

In early 2025, the government introduced a second vehicle: $CAR, a meme-style coin promoted heavily on social media. The token showed extreme volatility, and the report describes technical irregularities, opaque governance, and questions about market manipulation. The document also links $CAR to speculative land tokenization, where buyers could purchase plots using crypto through platforms operating with minimal oversight.

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Filed under: News - @ December 17, 2025 6:29 pm