Central African Republic’s embrace of opaque cryptocurrency schemes may put state assets at risk of being captured by foreign criminal organizations, according to a highly critical report published as the nation prepares for a presidential election.
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who is seeking a third term in office ahead of elections on December 28 2025, has emerged as a prominent advocate for digital currencies since taking office in 2016. In 2022, the Central African Republic became the first African country and the second in the world to adopt Bitcoin as an official currency. Touadéra has maintained that the shift to digital assets will bring prosperity by attracting funds from non-traditional sources to finance infrastructure and other projects.
Central African Republic Reportedly Moves to Adopt Bitcoin as Official Currency
The highly critical report notes:
“In April 2022, the CAR established a legal framework for cryptocurrencies and recognized bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA Franc. This initiative bypassed domestic institutions and regional financial authorities, and drew immediate opposition from the Banque des États de l’Afrique Centrale and the regional banking commission, which warned that the law violated treaty obligations and threatened regional financial stability.19 Undeterred, Touadéra presented the initiative as a path to prosperity and modernization. His chief of staff told the press: ‘The president supports this bill because it will improve the conditions of Central African citizens.’
In this, the initiative was fundamentally unrealistic. With just 15.7% of the population connected to electricity,21 fewer than 40% holding mobile subscriptions and GDP per capita at only US$467,22 most citizens lacked the infrastructure and resources to trade in digital currency.
In practice, this decision was primarily intended to attract foreign investors and capital. Yet no legitimate corporation is likely to invest in a country mired in conflict and marked by acute state fragility and rampant corruption, and so the initiative instead left the field open to predatory and criminal actors.”
Analysts widely expect him to win the upcoming vote.
The report was issued by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), a Switzerland-based network of experts on international organized crime. It warns that the opaque nature of the crypto schemes benefits a small circle of insiders and transnational criminal groups seeking to launder money.
Part of the report reads:
“Since his election in 2016, Touadéra has leaned heavily on external security, as well as political and transnational criminal networks, to consolidate power
With Western donors withdrawing, state finances collapsing and resources being drained by armed violence and humanitarian crises in rural regions, the CAR government turned to cryptocurrency.14 In 2022, in the lead-up to the constitutional change, the CAR became the second country in the world to legalize cryptocurrency as official tender. In the three years that followed, the country launched two separate cryptocurrencies and authorized the sale of mineral resources, forests, agricultural land and passports in exchange for cryptocurrency.
These successive initiatives have been fraught with issues and have lacked meaningful regulatory safeguards, enabling financial fraud and opening the door to transnational organized crime. In building a platform that primarily serves powerful networks operating through opaque methods, the CAR regime is effectively trading away the country’s sovereignty at the expense of the wider population.”
A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the report, calling it an attempt to discredit the administration and arguing that the projects serve as alternatives to the “monopoly of banks” and tightening measures by financial institutions.
The GI-TOC report focuses on two main initiatives it says lack transparency and anti-money-laundering safeguards:
Sango Coin project: Launched to attract investment by offering digital citizenship, e-residency, and tokenized land, the project was partly blocked by the Constitutional Court in August 2022. It failed to meet its token sales target, selling only about 10% of its 210 million token goal within a year – valued at less than €2 million – and its future remains unclear.
Central African Republic Sells Over 2 Million Sango Coins to Investors in 5 Days at $0.10 Per Coin
$CAR meme coin: Introduced in February 2025 as a way to raise the country’s global profile and support development, the meme coin faced technical setbacks, including suspension of its internet domain shortly after launch. While it has been used to buy tokenized land, there is no indication that these transactions have benefited the national budget.
SCAM ALERT | Central African Republic (CAR) President X Account Hacked to Promote the $CAR MemeCoin on X Account
The report also warns that government plans to extend these schemes to tokenizing mineral concessions without proper identity verification or safeguards could open the door to the illicit sale of precious resources such as diamonds, gold, and oil to criminal networks.
REGULATION | Central African Republic Officially Passes Law to Tokenize Land and Natural Resources
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