A new report warned that the Central African Republic’s crypto push favored elites and exposed the country to foreign criminal networks, rather than boosting financial inclusion.
The Central African Republic’s push into crypto has deepened elite control and exposed the country to “foreign criminal organizations,” according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
In the report titled “Behind the blockchain: Cryptocurrency and criminal capture in the Central African Republic,” researchers claimed that the CAR’s crypto ventures, from adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender to launching Sango Coin and the CAR memecoin, were rolled out in a fragile nation with limited electricity, internet access and oversight.
“An impoverished population, exposed to mass executions, torture and gang rape, with limited access to electricity, mobile phones and the internet, cannot engage in crypto investments in any meaningful way,” the report said, arguing that the programs were “tailored more to the interests of foreign investors than to the needs of its own population.”
