Touted as a tool of emancipation, blockchain was meant to give the Central African Republic a new form of economic and digital independence. In practice, weak state institutions and an immature ecosystem have created openings for criminal networks, undermining the development hopes of millions of Central Africans.

Blockchain technology in the Central African Republic (CAR) was meant to mark a break from the past. It was presented as a way to reduce reliance on traditional financial channels, loosen the constraints of the CFA franc, attract capital, and modernize a struggling economy.

Three years later, that promise has faded, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. In its report, Behind the Blockchain: Cryptocurrency and Criminal Capture in the Central African Republic, the organization says cryptocurrencies now sit at the centre of a system described as opaque and vulnerable to money laundering and exploitation.

The report draws on the work of national experts, investigators, open-source intelligence researchers, and data analysts involved in tracking organized criminal networks, related financial crimes, and illicit methods of fund transfers. Tools once promoted as an instrument of sovereignty are now viewed in a very different light.

An unprecedented and deeply political path

The timeline reflects the scale of CAR’s gamble. In April 2022, the country became the first in Africa and the second in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc. In July 2022, it launched Sango Coin, presented as a national digital currency backed by bitcoin and intended to facilitate investment, particularly in natural resources.

In March 2023, under pressure from regional and international institutions, including the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Parliament revoked bitcoin’s legal tender status. It nonetheless continued to allow cryptocurrencies as a means of payment.

Then, in February 2025, CAR launched $CAR, a meme coin on the Solana blockchain, promoted as a symbol of national unity and support for development.

This sequence is not only about technological experimentation. It is primarily political. It reflects a desire to bypass the constraints of the traditional banking system and create financial channels less dependent on international intermediaries.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime says the adoption of cryptocurrencies appears driven not only by a quest for monetary autonomy, but also by the need to facilitate financial flows with sensitive partners such as Russia, which has faced international sanctions since 2022.

Promises of inclusion, but a country with limited infrastructure

The report says the promises behind cryptocurrency collide with harsh realities on the ground. CAR faces deep structural weaknesses. Only 15.7% of residents have access to electricity, fewer than 40% have a mobile subscription, and GDP per capita stands at just $467.

Under these conditions, crypto investment remains out of reach for most citizens, many of whom already live in poverty.

Financial inclusion, a central theme of official communication, runs up against a simple fact. Without electricity, reliable internet, or smartphones, the “finance of the future” remains largely a slogan.

As a result, the objectives attributed to the program shift. The focus moves toward attracting foreign investors and capturing foreign currency. In that sense, the blockchain becomes less a development tool than a political infrastructure for circumvention, the report argues.

Tokenizing a country: from currency to land, then to mines

The most significant step in this financial transformation came with the tokenization of resources, the report says.

In July 2023, a law created a framework allowing rights linked to national wealth, such as land, forests, and mining resources, to be converted into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain.

The principle is well known in theory. A right is transformed into a tradable digital asset. In practice, it amounts to marketing strategic resources with greater ease, but with safeguards seen as insufficient.

The report says the law opens the door to large-scale tokenization. This includes agricultural land ranging from 10 to 200,000 hectares, and forests from 10,000 to 500,000 hectares under renewable licences.

From 2025, there is a stated ambition to extend the approach to mining rights via blockchain. This represents a major escalation. After tokenizing currency, the country’s territory and resources are now being tokenized as well.

The most controversial phase is land tokenization via $CAR. In May 2025, a decree authorized the tokenization of 1,700 hectares in the Lobaye prefecture, with concessions announced for 99 years, payable in $CAR on Solana.

The report describes a mechanism without paperwork, without Know Your Customer (KYC) identity checks, and without anti-money laundering controls. It says all it would take is an email address and cryptocurrency payment to acquire a plot.

This model, praised for its simplicity, is also where the main risk lies. The same lack of constraints that attracts investors can also attract illicit funds, including money laundering, sanctions evasion, and shell purchases, allowing criminal networks to secure rights over resource-rich areas.

Another red flag concerns documentation. The Global Initiative mentions digital property certificates whose authenticity is in doubt, with some potentially generated by artificial intelligence.

Budgetary opacity also remains central. The report says there is no evidence that income from these operations, such as the $38,308 collected through plot sales in November 2025, has been declared as public revenue or integrated into the state budget.

A market vulnerable to manipulation

The launch of $CAR also highlights the speculative and easily manipulated nature of these initiatives. Minutes before its launch, a wallet linked to the anonymous developer purchased 793.1 million tokens, representing 79.3% of the total supply. The report says this was done using 85.9 SOL, worth around $16,600 at the time. This gave the developer near-total control over the market, including timing, distribution, and liquidity.

Within 30 minutes, large allocations were transferred to four separate trust wallets. These transfers coincided with President Touadéra’s announcement on X, just before midnight on February 9, 2025.

On its launch day, the token then fell 85%, and its official website became inaccessible.

In these conditions, a cryptocurrency meant to unite and develop began to resemble a speculative gamble. The credibility of the presidential project of financial sovereignty took another hit, following doubts already raised by the earlier Sango Coin.

The Global Initiative describes an economic failure. Only 10% of the expected tokens were sold in one year, raising less than 2 million euros.

Within two years, the initiative largely lost momentum. Its website remained offline until April 29, 2025, when the project’s X account said it would not continue in its original form and that a complete transformation was underway.

The transition to $CAR in 2025 appeared as a pivot aimed at reviving interest through a more viral and speculative asset. Yet opacity persists, particularly regarding the use of funds and the integration of revenue into public accounts.

Shadow networks and the risk of criminal capture

The Global Initiative also points to a restricted circle of influence where politics, business, and transnational networks overlap.

It cites “shadow advisors,” including businessmen Nicolae Bogdan Buzaianu and Émile Parfait Simb, presented as the “African Madoff,” who is linked to allegations of fraud and scams in the crypto world.

Simb, reportedly connected to Moscow, has lived in Russia since 2023 despite around a hundred complaints against him in Cameroon and internationally over financial fraud linked to his crypto trading company Liyeplimal.

The report emphasizes the risk of money laundering and the attraction of illicit funds, largely due to the absence of robust oversight mechanisms.

Despite warnings from the Task Force against Money Laundering in Central Africa (GABAC), the government pursued its crypto projects. It did so in a fragile financial ecosystem where wallet transactions are visible but the identities behind them often remain unclear, a grey zone that benefits sophisticated actors rather than ordinary citizens.

The core issue: sovereignty without institutions

CAR has not only adopted cryptocurrencies. It has attempted to reconfigure sovereign functions, including currency, access to resources, and land concessions, within a weak institutional environment.

Financial sovereignty is not simply about stepping outside traditional banking channels. It requires rules, controls, reliable registries, fiscal traceability, anti-money laundering enforcement, and the state’s capacity to uphold its own decisions.

Without these safeguards, the blockchain can become the opposite of sovereignty. It can accelerate exploitation.

When land, forests, and eventually mining rights can be purchased through simple crypto transactions, the issue is no longer only economic. It becomes territorial, political, and a matter of security.