The Central African Republic gives legal tender to its own cryptocurrency

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The Central African Republic (CAR), today launched its first cryptocurrencywith the name “sango”after becoming at the end of last April the second country in the world and the first in Africa to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, along with the CFA franc.

“It is a historic moment, the dream of a president for the reconstruction of the Central African Republic. Cryptocurrency is revolutionary. It will democratize democracy”said the country’s president, Faustin Archange Touadéra, in a virtual presentation that took place this Sunday.

The president wants the new digital currency to allow enhance the natural resources of the country.

In May, a month after the adoption of bitcoin, a group of international experts was invited to the country to participate in a debate on the introduction of cryptocurrency in the national economy.

On September 7, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal currency of exchange, along with the US dollar.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged the Central American country, governed by President Nayib Bukele, to “eliminate the quality of legal tender” of bitcoin and expressed its “concern” about bond issue backed with cryptocurrency.

The financial institution also has shown concern following the decision taken by the Central African Government.

The CAR, whose economy depends heavily on mining, has suffered systemic violence since the end of 2012, when a coalition of rebel groups with a Muslim majority – the Séléka – took the capital, Bangui, and overthrew President François Bozizé after ten years of government (2003-2013), starting a civil war.

As a resistance against attacks by the Séléka Christian militias were then formed anti-Balaka that, like the first group, ended up divided into various armed factions.

Shortly before the presidential elections of December 27, 2020 -which the opposition asked to annul after not being able to open more than 40% of the voting centers for reasons of insecurity-, various armed groups came together to form the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC)which attempted to take the capital in January 2021.

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In October of that year, Touadéra declared a unilateral ceasefire with the aim of facilitating national dialogue.

Despite these advances, still two thirds of the country -rich in diamonds, uranium and gold- are controlled by militias and, according to the UN, some 692,000 people are internally displaced.

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