Central African Republic’s Crypto Experiment ‘Riddled With Red Flags,’ Says Report

A new report from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime has issued a warning about the Central African Republic’s experiment with cryptocurrency, concluding that initiatives have been poorly designed, opaque and vulnerable to abuse, while offering little tangible benefit to the population.

“These initiatives, launched under President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, were presented by the government as tools for economic growth, modernization and national development,” said Global Initiative on its website.

“However, the evidence documented in this report raises serious concerns about how cryptocurrency has been deployed, by whom, and to whose benefit.”

The CAR’s crypto ventures

Since 2022, Touadéra has championed a series of crypto ventures including the legalization of Bitcoin as legal tender, the launch of Sango Coin and, more recently, the CAR meme coin. The report argues that, rather than fostering inclusive development, the projects have largely catered to foreign investors and speculative actors, deepening risks to the country’s economic sovereignty.

The government has repeatedly claimed that cryptocurrency would boost investment, modernize financial infrastructure and help rebuild one of the world’s poorest and most conflict-affected countries. But the report paints a far bleaker picture in which the program appears tailored far more to the interests of foreign investors than to domestic needs.

Sango Coin, launched in mid-2022, was billed as a Bitcoin-backed national digital currency that would catalyze investment and fund infrastructure. Marketed aggressively abroad, it offered foreign investors incentives including citizenship, e-residency, land and access to mining and forestry assets in exchange for holding the token.

Many of those incentives were later struck down by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that citizenship, residency and land could not be acquired using cryptocurrency. The project also faced opposition from regional banking regulators, the IMF and the World Bank.

Despite the fanfare, Sango Coin failed to gain traction. Of a planned 210 million tokens, only about 10% were sold, raising less than €2 million. The report claimed there is no clear public accounting of how those funds were used.

Plans for a crypto city and a crypto island in the capital Bangui never materialized. Sango Coin’s X account announced in April that the project would be revamped, promising “a complete transformation.” It has not posted anything further since. A request for comment from Decrypt sent to its email address bounced back.

Despite Sango Coin’s failure, Touadéra’s government pressed ahead. In July 2023, parliament passed a law allowing the tokenization of natural resources, enabling land, minerals and timber to be represented by digital tokens on a blockchain. The report argues the law lacks basic governance, anti–money laundering safeguards and legal clarity, posing serious risks to national sovereignty.

Political meme coins

Those concerns intensified in February 2025 with the launch of the CAR meme coin, framed by Touadéra as an experiment to promote national development and global visibility.

Nathalia Dukhan, director of the Central Africa Observatory (CEA-Obs) at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, told Decrypt that the TRUMP coin, which was launched a month prior, is strikingly similar in structure.

“Both are built on the Solana blockchain, and in each case, a large share of tokens—around 80% for TRUMP—is controlled by entities closely linked to the creators. The same concentration applies to CAR, indicating a high potential for manipulation by its developers,” she said.

“Both coins experienced rapid spikes and collapses within hours of launch, reflecting their nature as highly speculative financial instruments built largely on the notoriety of a political figure.”

The rollout was chaotic, marked by a last-minute website registration, suspended social media accounts, concerns that promotional material was AI-generated and wild price swings.

On-chain analysis cited in the report shows that a single wallet linked to the anonymous developer acquired nearly 80% of the token supply at launch, giving it near-total control over the market and enabling potential manipulation. The coin briefly surged to a market capitalization of more than $900 million before losing most of its value.

The government later used CAR to tokenize land, offering 1,700 hectares under 99-year concessions payable in the meme coin. By late 2025, sales amounted to roughly $38,000, which was not clearly declared as public income or shown to benefit the state. Even digital land certificates promoted by the president appeared to be AI-generated, further undermining credibility.

The report situates the crypto initiatives within a broader pattern in the CAR of outsourcing state authority to opaque foreign networks. Since coming to power, Touadéra has relied heavily on external security actors, particularly Russia’s Wagner Group, which has been accused by the UN of widespread human rights abuses in exchange for privileged access to natural resources.

“At present, the legal framework and enforcement mechanisms are insufficient to prevent corruption, money laundering, or the financing of terrorism through cryptocurrency,” Dukhan said.

“Moreover, there is a clear lack of political will to tackle financial crimes. On the contrary, the CAR government has actively fostered opacity, seemingly to attract investors seeking to shield illicit activities.”

Several figures involved in promoting the crypto projects, the report added, have been accused or convicted of fraud or resource trafficking elsewhere, reinforcing fears of state capture by criminal networks.

The CAR government has been approached for comment.