This political and government initiative faces structural difficulties.
The Central African Republic, the country that adopted bitcoin as legal tender in April, has put the brakes on its cryptocurrency ambitions.
In early July, the country began building its own cryptocurrency, Sango Coin, with the goal of becoming “Africa’s first crypto hub” with “zero taxation.” The Central African Republic is “sitting on a mountain of untapped wealth” including gold, diamonds, rare metals, and “Sango Coin will be direct access to our resources for the whole world” to attract investors and “start the engines of the economy,” said head of state Faustin Arcange Touadéra.
Structural difficulties
But this political and government initiative is running into some structural difficulties, and the site will be at least a few months late. First, while Sango Coin was expected to be traded on major cryptocurrency exchanges before the end of this year, at best it will have to wait until the first quarter of next year.
The crypto-currency winter has already significantly cooled investor enthusiasm for the project. Initially, the Central African Republic was to raise just over $1 billion through its Sango coin. However, in the end, this initiative attracted only a million dollars of investment.
In addition, part of the project was invalidated by the country’s Constitutional Court because the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, wanted to grant Central African citizenship to any investor who purchases $60,000 or more from Sango Coin. This was denied by the Constitutional Court, which holds that Central African citizenship cannot be bought, that it is acquired through an administrative process and should not be linked to an investment in a financial product. Therefore, the Sango Coin project will have to wait a few more months before it may see the light of day.