Central African Republic: Crypto Experiments, State Capture Risks, and the Commodification of Sovereignty

Executive Assessment

Ten days ahead of the Central African Republic’s presidential election, an extensive investigative report has placed the country’s crypto experiments at the centre of a broader debate on governance, sovereignty, and criminal capture of state assets. The findings depict a pattern in which digital-finance initiatives—marketed as innovation and financial emancipation—have instead created opaque financial channels, elevated exposure to transnational criminal networks, and weakened state oversight over land and natural resources.

From the failed Sango Coin to the speculative $CAR meme token, crypto in the CAR has evolved less as a development tool and more as a mechanism of elite extraction, raising acute risks for state legitimacy, fiscal integrity, and long-term sovereignty.

From Innovation Narrative to Governance Breakdown

The Sango Coin: A Strategic Failure Disguised as Reform

Launched in 2022, Sango Coin was presented as a sovereign crypto initiative anchored to Bitcoin, intended to attract foreign investment, modernize state finance, and fund infrastructure. In practice, the initiative collapsed under legal contradictions, institutional weakness, and lack of transparency.

Key provisions—such as granting citizenship, residency, and access to land in exchange for tokens—were invalidated by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that such assets cannot be monetized through cryptocurrencies. The market response was unequivocal: fewer than 10% of the planned tokens were sold, generating under €2 million, with no publicly available accounting on fund allocation. Flagship projects such as a “Crypto City” and “Crypto Island” never materialized.

For African Security Analysis (ASA) analysts, Sango Coin illustrated a classic failure mode in fragile states: technology deployed ahead of institutions, with political signalling prioritized over regulatory capacity.

The $CAR Meme Coin: Speculation, Concentration, and Asset Tokenization

In early 2025, authorities relaunched their crypto narrative with the $CAR meme coin, built on the Solana blockchain. Unlike Sango, $CAR abandoned development pretences and entered overt speculative territory.

Key risk indicators identified by analysts include:

• Extreme token concentration, with approximately 80% of supply controlled by a single wallet linked to anonymous developers
• A rapid, unsustainable valuation surge followed by collapse
• Operational opacity, including last-minute website registration, suspended social media accounts, and AI-generated promotional content

Despite this, the state escalated its involvement by tokenizing land and concessions, offering long-term leases payable in $CAR. Revenues generated remained marginal, with no evidence of integration into the national treasury.

From an Analysts perspective, this marked a dangerous shift: crypto moved from failed experimentation to direct monetization of sovereignty assets without safeguards.

The Bosongo Decree: Tokenization as Territorial Alienation

The turning point came with Decree No. 25.062, granting 1,777 hectares near Bosongo village for 99 years, tokenized and marketed via $CAR. Though legally framed through constitutional amendments and a 2023 law on resource tokenization, the decree triggered national and international alarm.

A 99-year concession, in operational terms, amounts to de facto permanent alienation, particularly in a country where land governance remains contested and conflict-sensitive. Beneficiary identities remain unclear, with indications of foreign financial actors—notably from Singapore—raising fears of jurisdictional arbitrage and resource laundering.

ASA analysts interpret this decree as:

• A bypass of democratic land governance
• A transfer of control without enforceable accountability
• A structural weakening of future state authority over territory

In fragile states, such arrangements historically correlate with long-term instability, grievance formation, and elite entrenchment.

Criminal Exposure and External Dependence

The report situates CAR’s crypto trajectory within a broader pattern of external dependence, particularly on Russian-linked security and resource actors. The presence of Wagner-associated networks—already accused of resource exploitation and rights abuses—creates fertile ground for crypto-enabled laundering, sanctions evasion, and illicit extraction.

Several promoters of CAR’s crypto initiatives have past associations with fraud or resource trafficking abroad. Combined with weak AML/CFT frameworks, this creates ideal conditions for criminal-state convergence, often described as “state capture through financial innovation.”

The African Crypto Paradox: CAR as an Outlier, Not a Model

African Security Analysis (ASA) emphasizes a crucial distinction: crypto adoption in Africa is largely driven by real economic needs, including remittances, inflation hedging, freelancer payments, and financial inclusion. Across the continent, stablecoins and P2P platforms play a pragmatic role where banking systems fail.

However, the CAR case diverges sharply:

• Crypto is imposed top-down, not adopted bottom-up
• It serves elite asset conversion, not citizen utility
• It substitutes governance rather than complementing it

In short, this is not African crypto—it is crypto without a state.

Strategic Implications

The Central African Republic now faces:

• Elevated risks of sanctions and financial isolation
• Long-term loss of control over land and resources
• Entrenchment of opaque elite networks
• Increased vulnerability to foreign coercion and dependency

For investors, donors, and security actors, CAR’s crypto policy significantly increases political-risk premiums and complicates any engagement involving land, minerals, or infrastructure.

Conclusion: Technology Cannot Substitute Sovereignty

The Central African Republic’s crypto ventures demonstrate that financial innovation cannot compensate for institutional fragility. Absent transparency, regulatory enforcement, and democratic oversight, crypto becomes a vector for extraction rather than development.

African Security Analysis supports decision-makers by:

• Mapping crypto–resource–security risk convergence
• Identifying state capture indicators in financial innovation
• Assessing sanctions exposure and compliance fallout
• Providing early-warning analysis on sovereignty erosion
• Distinguishing legitimate financial inclusion from elite-driven financial engineering

ASA’s assessment is unequivocal: without immediate governance correction, CAR’s crypto trajectory risks locking the country into a long-term cycle of dependency, opacity, and strategic vulnerability—with consequences extending far beyond digital finance.