Over the past three years, the Central African Republic (CAR) has implemented a series of cryptocurrency initiatives that have unfolded amid extreme political instability, armed violence and shrinking civic space. These initiatives, launched under President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, were presented by the government as tools for economic growth, modernization and national development. However, the evidence documented in this report raises serious concerns about how cryptocurrency has been deployed, by whom, and to whose benefit.

Since 2022, the CAR has pursued an ambitious crypto agenda that included making bitcoin legal tender, launching a national cryptocurrency (Sango Coin), and later introducing a meme-based token known as $CAR. These initiatives were rolled out in a country where access to electricity, mobile connectivity and the internet remains severely limited, and where much of the population is affected by displacement, insecurity and poverty. As a result, meaningful participation by citizens in cryptocurrency markets has been largely unrealistic.

This report traces how these cryptocurrency ventures were introduced in parallel with broader political developments, including the consolidation of executive power, the growing influence of foreign actors, and the monetization of natural resources. The CAR became the second country in the world to legalize cryptocurrency as official tender, a move that was swiftly criticized by international financial institutions, regional banking regulators and the country’s own Constitutional Court. While the law was later amended to revoke bitcoin’s status as legal tender, subsequent legislation enabled the tokenization of land and natural resources through blockchain-based systems that lacked robust governance safeguards.

Sango Coin, launched in mid-2022, was marketed as a transformative economic project. It offered foreign investors access to land, e-residency and investment opportunities in mining and forestry, and promised large-scale infrastructure projects such as a ‘Crypto City’. Despite these ambitions, the initiative failed to attract significant investment, with only a small fraction of the intended tokens sold, and many of its promised outcomes remaining unrealized.

In early 2025, the government introduced a second initiative: the $CAR meme coin. Launched with heavy promotion on social media, the token experienced extreme volatility and was marked by technical irregularities, opaque governance and questions about market manipulation. The report documents how the $CAR coin was linked to speculative land tokenization, allowing plots of land to be purchased using cryptocurrency through largely unregulated platforms.

Drawing on open-source research, blockchain analysis and publicly available data, the report examines how these cryptocurrency initiatives created opportunities for opaque financial flows, speculative practices and potential criminal exploitation. It highlights the role of shadow networks, foreign private actors and individuals with histories of fraud allegations in shaping and promoting the CAR’s crypto agenda.

Against a backdrop of weak institutions and limited oversight, the report concludes that cryptocurrency in the CAR has functioned less as a tool for inclusive development and more as a mechanism that favours elite interests while exposing the country to heightened risks of financial abuse, loss of sovereignty and criminal capture.