Unfortunately, the Sango project turned out to be a hodgepodge of buzzwords and half-cooked ideas. The Central African Republic swang for the fences and stroke out tremendously. They launched a coin, a metaverse project, an actual crypto island, and they want to tokenize everything under the sun. The self-described “Sango crypto hub initiative” tries to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra presented the Central African Republic’s own cryptocurrency with the vapid words, “Sango Coin will be the next-generation currency for Central African Republic.” Why would they need that if bitcoin is already legal tender? To add to the confusion, Sango Coin will be backed by bitcoin. They didn’t explain how that would work exactly. Or mentioned what happened to UST/ Luna, the last project to use an unstable asset like bitcoin as a reserve.
Besides that, the Central African Republic promised a clear crypto regulation and announced that they plan to tokenize the country’s natural resources. Why would they need a blockchain for that? “There are diamonds all over the country. Iron, copper, coltan, lithium, cobalt, and other strategic minerals which are today known and identified,” claimed the President at the Sango Genesis Event. What real-world rights to those minerals would an entry into a blockchain entail?
A slightly more sensible plan, the CAR plans to digitize the country’s land registry system and leverage blockchain technology to do so. They could do it more efficiently with a centralized database, though, since registry is uniquely a governmental affair. Even more confusing than the tokenized commodities, project Sango promises “the only metaverse backed by reality.” “The Crypto Island” will be both a metaverse project and a real place with low taxes by the Oubangui River.
“The citizens will gain at every level, they will live in a country in full economic development, which means employment and prosperity,” promised the President mere minutes after losing all of his credibility. Only to then drop his truth bomb and gain some of it back, “For us, the formal economy is no longer an option.”
