Following Bitcoin’s adoption in April, the government of the Central African Republic [CAR] has officially launched its crypto hub initiative to boost its local digital asset sector.
Dubbed the Sango Project, CAR’s President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, spoke on Sango’s vision to have a “common cryptocurrency and an integrated capital market that could stimulate commerce and sustain growth,” at the launch event on 3rd July.
The event will kick start the plans to transform CAR into a ” legal crypto hub” that attracts investors from all around the globe.
The Sango project, including a “Sango Coin”, was approved by the Central African Republic’s National Assembly and spearheaded by Touadera, who said the token would grant access to the country’s “mountain” of natural resources, including gold and diamonds.
The president later tweeted that “a formal economy is no longer an option” and “the impenetrable bureaucracy in the systems do not give us a chance to be competitive.”
However, outside the government circle, CAR’s new announcement has few takers.
According to a 2020 survey, nine out of 10 Central Africans do not have access to the internet. That, along with an unreliable electricity supply, led many to question whether the CAR was the right nation to test cryptocurrency’s ability to replace fiat.
Is CAR’s Bitcoin Bet far-fetched?
Meanwhile, the World Bank also said that “it will be physically impossible” for the organization to fund another plan as big as the Sango project and showed its concerns about the CAR’s Bitcoin adoption.
Recently, President Touadéra invited a group of Bitcoin experts to advise the country on issues like setting up internet access, connecting to the Lightning Network, and developing mining facilities.
The report highlighted two contrasting findings, one- Internet access in the Central African Republic was estimated to be only 11.4% of the population in January 2021, and two- Mobile credit was one of the country’s most used modes of payment.
The authors recommended leveraging the country’s 12,000 mobile credit retailers and installing bitcoin ATMs in cities in secured locations.
They also believed that bitcoin can best be deployed through peoples’ smartphones using the Lightning Network installed in the telephone system.