The Central African Republic’s presidency announced the establishment of the continent’s first legal Bitcoin Investment Platform called ‘Sango’, extending the impoverished country’s embrace of digital finance despite warnings from the International Monetary Fund, IMF.
After decades of conflict, the C.A.R became the first in Africa and only the second in the world to adopt bitcoin as an official currency last month.
So far, the government has provided little information about the logistics of its bitcoin vision.
The soon-to-be-launched “SANGO” crypto initiative has a website on which interested investors can sign up to a waiting list.
“The formal economy is no longer an option.
“An impenetrable bureaucracy is keeping us stuck in systems that do not give a chance to be competitive,” President Faustin-Archange Touadera said in a statement on Monday.
There was no word on when the investment hub would open or how it would function.
The adoption of bitcoin in a country where internet use is low and electricity is unreliable raised eyebrows among cryptocurrency experts, perplexed lawmakers and residents of the gold and diamond-producing country, and drew warnings from the International Monetary Fund.
Central Africa’s regional banking regulator for the six-nation Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa also issued a reminder about its cryptocurrency ban, stating that the ban was in place to ensure financial stability.