Bitcoin Legal Tender in Central African Republic

[maikrothaman]

Those of us who live within the borders of the United States must accept official U.S. legal tender for the payment of debts. I believe that this is the only meaning of 'legal tender'. Bitcoins (for example) CAN be accepted to pay debts, but the other party is not obliged to accept them. So I wouldn't expect a government to accept them instead of U.S. dollars for paying taxes or your landlord for paying the rent/bank for paying the mortgage. However, it is perfectly legal to use bitcoins to pay for goods and services, just as it is perfectly legal to use one of a plethora of other forms of payment (including foreign currencies) as long as the other party accepts them.

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[fillippone]

When the reality goes further than fantasy:
the Central African Colonial Central Bank  (BEAC) has written an email to the President of the Touadera that the news "Bitcoin" was adopted as legal tender could cause "significant negative impact"



No shit Scherlock!

[Sithara007]

^^^ LOL.. the sarcastic post lighted up my mood for today. France retains a strict grip on its former colonies (especially those in Africa). Franc is still being used as a currency in some of these nations (although in mainland France it has been replaced with Euro). Let's not forget the negative role played by France during the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Some of the countries (especially CAR and Mali) has lead the rebellion against continuing French dominance, and the former colonial power has reacted quite angrily by supporting various terrorist and militia groups in these countries.

[Zlantann]

When the reality goes further than fantasy:
the Central African Colonial Central Bank  (BEAC) has written an email to the President of the Touadera that the news "Bitcoin" was adopted as legal tender could cause "significant negative impact"



No shit Scherlock!

It's not a surprise because it was predicted that these anti-bitcoin forces would fight back. My question is BEAC has been the central bank of CAR for decades but this country has been suffering from hyperinflation , poverty and several economic challenges, why have their diverse economic policies failed? This poor and helpless country is now seeking for alternative means of survival and they are predicting negative economic outcome. Why are IMF and BEAC policies not yielding positive outcomes. I am also expecting a letter from IMF's managing director (MD) and Chairwoman Kristalina Georgieva.

[fillippone]

Nayib Bukele organized a conference to illustrate to other nation states  the perks of Bitcoin Adoption:


Nayib Bukele says 44 countries to meet in El Salvador to discuss bitcoin

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, tweeted late Sunday that 44 countries will meet in El Salvador on Monday to discuss bitcoin, among other things.

"Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country," wrote Bukele.

One could think tose third world states are irrelevant, or tiny economies, often overlooked by most powerful countries, so Bitcoin is irrelevant if the orange pilling stays in these regions.
But remember that Bitcoin is of uttermost importance for this people, not the privileged rich people wanting to cash in quick money. Just as Jameson Loop says:

[P2PECS]

One could think tose third world states are irrelevant, or tiny economies, often overlooked by most powerful countries, so Bitcoin is irrelevant if the orange pilling stays in these regions.
But remember that Bitcoin is of uttermost importance for this people, not the privileged rich people wanting to cash in quick money. Just as Jameson Loop says:

I had an argument with a guy on the forum who defended precisely that, he insisted on belittling those countries for being poor and belittling the effect that the adoption of BTC could have in those countries of low GDP. Isn't it the most normal thing that it is precisely those countries that are interested in BTC? I think it is quite normal and welcome every small country that wants to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.

[Zlantann]

One could think tose third world states are irrelevant, or tiny economies, often overlooked by most powerful countries, so Bitcoin is irrelevant if the orange pilling stays in these regions.
But remember that Bitcoin is of uttermost importance for this people, not the privileged rich people wanting to cash in quick money. Just as Jameson Loop says:

In 2015 when inflation skyrocketed in Zimbabwe the government was forced to print $100 trillion notes (each worth just $40) and access to other foreign currencies like the dollars was impossible, the people turned to Bitcoin. In 2018 the United Nation predicted that Africa could be the next frontier for cryptocurrencies due to high inflation. This is why the main Bitcoin countries are countries with double-digit inflation rates such as Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

It is also reported that about 57% of Africans don't have a traditional bank account because most banks in the continent have limited economic options to serve its citizens. Bitcoin is one of the best options to give this voiceless people cheap access to financial transactions.

Most African nations are still suffering from neocolonialism. Their colonial masters still control their financial sector. Opponents of the France backed CAR's currency CFA  indicated that in exchange for the guarantees provided by the French treasury, African countries channel more money to France than they receive in aid. They also argue that they have no say in deciding key monetary policies agreed to by France and sometimes these economic policies affect the people negatively. CAR government believe that Bitcoin as an alternative legal tender would reduce this financial influence to a large extent.

For me Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme but its target is to assist in giving individuals control over their finance. The economy might not get better if Bitcoin is made a legal tender, but an opportunity have been created for individuals to be free to choose between alternatives that give them the utmost satisfaction. Bitcoin gives individuals the opportunity to escape from the financial errors created by government and their agents. Hence, Bitcoin is not for nations but for the people. And any government that wants the financial freedom of its citizens should adopt Bitcoin.

https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2018-july-2018/africa-could-be-next-frontier-cryptocurrency
https://thefintechtimes.com/top-african-challenger-banks-helping-the-unbanked-through-mobile-services/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41094094

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin gives individuals the opportunity to escape from the financial errors created by government and their agents. Hence, Bitcoin is not for nations but for the people. And any government that wants the financial freedom of its citizens should adopt Bitcoin.

There is no reason that you need to create such a framework in which you believe that there is some kind of interest in favorable of the people but not also to the advantage of nation/states.

For sure, some nation/states, institutions and status quo rich people are going to consider bitcoin as a threat to whatever systems of wealth that they have in place; nonetheless, bitcoin seems to create options/opportunities for states, institutions and even status quo rich people even if some of the options/opportunities might be different - depending on you level of wealth or maybe even your level of taking advantage of others through status quo systems.. and likely bitcoin will continue to incentivize more fairness based on the way it is structured.

Any systematic change is likely to cause for some level of winner and losers, but some of the seeming efficiencies in bitcoin and even some of the likely paradigm changing aspects of bitcoin seem likely to create new value too.

[Zlantann]

Bitcoin gives individuals the opportunity to escape from the financial errors created by government and their agents. Hence, Bitcoin is not for nations but for the people. And any government that wants the financial freedom of its citizens should adopt Bitcoin.

There is no reason that you need to create such a framework in which you believe that there is some kind of interest in favorable of the people but not also to the advantage of nation/states.

For sure, some nation/states, institutions and status quo rich people are going to consider bitcoin as a threat to whatever systems of wealth that they have in place; nonetheless, bitcoin seems to create options/opportunities for states, institutions and even status quo rich people

I just grasped that my framework is somehow imbalance. Bitcoin would indeed favor nations/states this is because it is the wealth of individuals that culminate to the total wealth of a nation. Hence, if Bitcoin can to some extent contribute to the wealth of individuals, then the aggregate income and aggregate consumption of the nation would increase. Bitcoin's ability to create options/opportunities also has the ability to improve the saving behavior of people of a particular nation. And an increase in the savings of citizens has the tendency of increasing household investments and household owned assets, which to a large extent affects the GDP positively.     

[fillippone]

A very interesting Twitter Space was held by Alex Gladstein, discussing various toplics.
Of course, the main issue was the Central African Republic.

This is the link to the recording of the Twitter Space:


DISCUSSING THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC MAKING BITCOIN LEGAL TENDER

Alex Gladstein and Fodé Diop join a Bitcoin Magazine Twitter Spaces to share updates about the Central African Republic’s plan for Bitcoin adoption.

My Friends  at the BIP_Show decided to publish a little executive summary of that Twitter Space:

S04E18 - Delle due... LUNA Starting Point at 44:55

Rikki: "Dear Guybrush, what topic do you want to cover?"

Guybrush: “I would like to be interested in what is happening in Central Africa because I have seen some news. What is the name of the president of the Central African Republic? I saw that details emerged about his private life, about what he studied: it turns out that he is a math genius, then there are videos of him who despite being the president gives math lessons in the classroom. Do you know more? "

Rikki: So I studied the subject a bit. In reality, even on this story of the president's Twitter account, there is a whole mystery because he did not have Twitter before, then he became Twitter a few weeks ago, practically he is just talking about cryptocurrencies, plus he tweets in a rather ungrammatical English-French. So there are those who doubt the authenticity of who actually manages this account.
But let's do a little order, let's start from the beginning because interesting and worrying news arrive from the Central African Republic at the same time. Once again, Bitcoin Italia Podcast tells you about Bitcoin as nobody tells you, and therefore, unfortunately, we are forced to go against the trend for a moment with what is the narrative of the Bitcoin world in general that greets the law that, in fact, makes Bitcoin Legal Tender in the Central African Republic as the first step, the second piece, of that domino effect triggered by El Salvador that many blind bitcoiners hope has begun and is now unstoppable. In reality, as we had already said in a few episodes, the situation in the Central African Republic is very different from that of El Salvador is a largely depopulated nation, a large territory with 5 million inhabitants, an average salary that is one-third of that of El Salvador: the average salary of the inhabitants of that region is around 100 dollars a month. A region which, despite being rich in raw materials, is therefore very poor and which is experiencing a situation of violent civil war. My first concern, therefore, was to understand how the use of Bitcoin as a Legal Tender could work in a nation with these characteristics of instability and with a practically non-existent technological infrastructure: 11% of the population, I remind you, has access to the internet. So I used some of my contacts to document myself and the evidence I was able to find inevitably demonstrates that such a thing cannot work in the Central African Republic. Absolutely not. The situation is very complex, it is not El Salvador from any point of view. I spoke to a dear friend who is a doctor from Milan who has worked for Emergency for a long time and has been responsible for Emergency's projects in Africa for a long time and who has been in the Central African Republic for over a year and a half. He is a dear friend he is a collaborator, I was one of his collaborators I worked for him for a few years, and so I called him immediately to understand a little what his opinions could be. He is someone who knows nothing about Bitcoin, but he knows a lot about Africa and the Central African Republic. And he painted me a picture that to define in dark colours is really using a metaphor, a euphemism. In what sense? The sense that he spent a year and a half in Central Africa and then he left because Emergency closed the facilities and hospitals in the country.

GuyBrush: “If even Emergency can't make it, we're in bad shape”.

Rikki: "Exactly, because it was not able, the largest health NGO in the world, the one with one of the highest economic powers, and above all a logistics sector of unbeatable value, which has hospitals in Kabul, which has hospitals under bombs is left Central Africa because he had no guarantee of being able to ensure the safety of his personnel.
So this must already give us a fairly delineated outline. So a very difficult situation, when they were there, they lived isolated facts because they could not go around or leave the Emergency compounds or health facilities. He then told me of a situation, in addition to widespread violence, of endemic corruption at the political level and at the civil and social level. That is, the Central African Republic is not a poor country, it is very rich in raw materials, it is full of gold and diamonds, it is full of oil. What's the problem? The problem is that this wealth coagulates in pockets of corruption that are extreme which translates into a history of dictators, political instability and civil war, one of which, as I said, is underway. So it is not clear, in this very complicated context, what the meaning of a Bitcoin law is given that, and we will see it shortly, it is not a Bitcoin law. And this must be said very clearly. The question arises, however, as to what: it is the months that parliament actually faces, this law writes; a much-discussed law, which has had a rather troubled parliamentary process and is discovered by experts in the country and cryptography experts. There was a beautiful live, a Twitter Space indeed, from the Bitcoin Magazine account with Alex Gladstein who invited a whole series of activists from the country and neighbouring countries, therefore experts from the Central African Republic and Bitcoin experts, who told how there is evidence that the law was strongly supported through a large lobbying job by this obscure Cameroonian businessman who has on his resume a history of industrial scams, financial scams, full-blown Ponzi schemes and sought after in several African states. This thing sets off an alarm bell. For what reason? Analyzing the text, the text is very smoky, the text of the law as it was written is very smoky because the Central African Republic is one of those 15 countries that have the Franco Colonial. The law, which does not speak only of Bitcoin, but speaks in a generic way of cryptocurrencies in more than one article, effectively equates them to legal tender currency, therefore to the colonial franc. This is a big problem that has been raised by many experts from the Central African Republic because the suspicion is, in essence, that there is a scam behind the law - that these very wealthy people actually want a legal way to steal state money. as, trivially introducing useless tokens like Luna, demanding from the Central Bank the conversion of the shit-token created ad hoc into the colonial franc, and escaping with the colonial franc or in any case cashing in the colonial franc. Which is possible today by reading the text of the law. So this is a very serious problem because let's forget that most of the analysts and NGOs I have read comments and works about in recent weeks agree to the law, forget that the Central African Republic can use Bitcoins in the streets: it is impossible, there is no technological infrastructure for this to happen. So there are two cases: we can see the glass as half full and this is extremely interesting because if this were an attempt to escape the direct control of the French Central Bank; remember, the colonial franc is printed directly by the French Central Bank and is pegged to the Euro so it is their Stable Fiat Coin. And from this point of view it serves, for this purpose in 15 countries, 180 million people live in African states that have the Colonial Franc as state currency. So if this is an attempt to escape the direct control of the former colonial power, then this is certainly potentially very interesting because it can be a fuse: 180 million people 15 states, if this were, much more populous than the Central African Republic if this motion of rebellion was born in Central Africa and then flared up in the rest of these 15 countries, would be fantastic! And it would be a very interesting thing to see. The problem is that the other side of the coin is that this is a state Ponzi scheme. And unfortunately, from the information I was able to recover, it seems that this is more the case.

Guybrush: “I understand that there will not be a“ Central African Mission ”

Rikki:“ No, for the moment, let's wait to see what happens, I would say. “

Guybrush:" So the Twitter account of the Central African president who tweets all the time, that is, it's not official, but does the president know? Didn't he distance himself? "

Rikki: "Back then in this Space, a local journalist spoke who said he had confirmation from the staff that it is an official account anyway. But it was clearly created to talk about crypto because this account only talks about crypto when there is some other one too. problem in Central Africa. "

GuyBrush:" Eh, They wanted to replicate the Bukele model. "

Rikki:" Oh yeah, exactly. Probably yes, not understood. Bukele's account, but to a group of collaborators who, however, I repeat, you don't know who they are because you don't have to imagine a normal presidential office. Cartels of drug traffickers, or mafia organizations.

Guybrush: "Ok, so little enthusiasm for this move by Central Africa"

​​Rikki: "A lot of caution, if not little enthusiasm."

Guybrush: "This teaches us that whenever there will be an announcement of this type we must be cautious instead of this announcement here many had incensed, especially Samsung Mow: "Here the Domino Effect has already started" we must be very careful ".

Rikki: "There is a lot of propaganda even in our world, guys, things are complex and our path will not be triumphal, but it will be fraught with dangers and slips because unfortunately the world out there, to which Bitcoin must adhere, is complicated and full of complexity and enormous problems. To think that Bitcoin would have saved Africa without having to deal with African dictators, African oligarchs, international countries that have billionaire interests in Africa, guerrillas, African militias, African ethnic clashes, corruption and endemic poverty. Africa is just telling a fairy tale ".

GuyBrush: ”Ok good. Anyway congratulations for the investigation because I had not yet found all this precision anywhere in the various articles. I had tried to inform myself a little but it is all very confusing and above all, being sector magazines, everyone always talks about the Domino Effect, adoption level with nation-state adoption is the new of 2022 ".

Rikki: “Then not even net of analyzes that are not so much in depth objectively, there is a difficulty in having reliable news coming from there. That is, I will give you a stupid example, the connection from Central Africa of this Twitter Space kept jumping because this was in the capital and the internet in the capital is patchy, so we are talking about this technological infrastructure. Just imagine you guys ".

GuyBrush: "Okay".

[Zlantann]

This discussion between Guybrush and Rikki is a terrifying eye-opener. Although I have some reservations but government using Bitcoin as a means to undo it's own people is sad. When I read an article that the reason for the adoption of Bitcoin in Central African Republic was to undermine the CFA- the French backed currency. This is because there have been a fierce scrabbling for control of the country because of its rich resources between Russia and France. But I thought it was another propaganda by anti- Bitcoin forces. The Russian military mercenary Wagner have been helping CAR fight or repel the constant attack of rebels. Some writer argued that Bitcoin was adopted CAR to help Russia invade sanctions from the international community. Let's see how it goes in the future.

[fillippone]

This discussion between Guybrush and Rikki is a terrifying eye-opener. Although I have some reservations but government using Bitcoin as a means to undo it's own people is sad. When I read an article that the reason for the adoption of Bitcoin in Central African Republic was to undermine the CFA- the French backed currency. This is because there have been a fierce scrabbling for control of the country because of its rich resources between Russia and France. But I thought it was another propaganda by anti- Bitcoin forces. The Russian military mercenary Wagner have been helping CAR fight or repel the constant attack of rebels. Some writer argued that Bitcoin was adopted CAR to help Russia invade sanctions from the international community. Let's see how it goes in the future.

Sadly, centralised forms of power tend to adopt every possible measure to self preserve, irrespective of the interest of other (legitimate) stakeholders.
Bitcoin should act like a relentless market force, used to overcome such limitations by attrition.
When you see the orange coin being enacted as legal tender with a Law, an act of the very same institution that has the most to lose from Bit pin itself, you should ask yourself in which interest such a decision has been taken.
 

[jaberwock]

Sadly, centralised forms of power tend to adopt every possible measure to self preserve, irrespective of the interest of other (legitimate) stakeholders.
Bitcoin should act like a relentless market force, used to overcome such limitations by attrition.
When you see the orange coin being enacted as legal tender with a Law, an act of the very same institution that has the most to lose from Bit pin itself, you should ask yourself in which interest such a decision has been taken.

I would guess that this was taken so that they could get some taxes and make some money, that seems like the most common possibility and why most other nations have made it legal tender as well and they are putting some bitcoin as reserve currency as well.

This means that CAR is actually doing something like getting as much bitcoin as possible, from taxes or from investments or reserve currency or whatever and with a ton of bitcoins in their treasury, they will end up with a lot of leverage in the future when bitcoin goes up, they could even get a loan from somewhere when they show the value of the bitcoin as a collateral and would make it better.

[TimeTeller]

Sadly, centralised forms of power tend to adopt every possible measure to self preserve, irrespective of the interest of other (legitimate) stakeholders.
Bitcoin should act like a relentless market force, used to overcome such limitations by attrition.
When you see the orange coin being enacted as legal tender with a Law, an act of the very same institution that has the most to lose from Bit pin itself, you should ask yourself in which interest such a decision has been taken.

I would guess that this was taken so that they could get some taxes and make some money, that seems like the most common possibility and why most other nations have made it legal tender as well and they are putting some bitcoin as reserve currency as well.

This means that CAR is actually doing something like getting as much bitcoin as possible, from taxes or from investments or reserve currency or whatever and with a ton of bitcoins in their treasury, they will end up with a lot of leverage in the future when bitcoin goes up, they could even get a loan from somewhere when they show the value of the bitcoin as a collateral and would make it better.

Definitely, when they decide to have this financial commitment towards BTC, they already laid out the positive impact that may do to their system.
They won't resort to this option if they are not seeing positive repercussion to their financial system.
Because they can always go back to where they are if this consideration is not showing any good to their economy.
So maybe couple of years from now, we will see what will be the influence of exploring in crypto to their economic status.

[Vaskiy]

Countries that adopt bitcoin wants it to function as a centralized system. They never let the true world functioning of bitcoin. I state this based on the recent news rolling out connective to the adoption of bitcoin by Panama. It was said that President needs to sign, but he has said he'll never sign the order until some additions were done connecting to AML policies. This is how people are made to fulfill KYC where everything gets lost of using bitcoin.

[fillippone]

Some shady initiatives going on in CAR:

Central African Republic to launch bitcoin investment platform

BANGUI, May 24 (Reuters) - Central African Republic will launch the continent’s first legal cryptocurrency investment hub, the presidency said, extending the impoverished country’s embrace of digital finance despite words of caution from the International Monetary Fund.

This statement, together with the whole article, do not mean much to me. And thinking about the above post, looks like something made on purpouse to make the “exit scam” scenario more plausible.
Looking for a bitcoin adoption, it’s not a fiat gateway the first things that came to mind.

Edit:
Twitter update from our beloved President:

[Zlantann]

President Faustin-Archange Touadera without giving any clear investment plan or strategy announced that it is launching Africa’s first legal cryptocurrency investment hub called SANGO . He claimed that CAR is changing its former economic setup that was characterized by bureaucratic bottleneck which has hindered the country from competing with other economies. The government advised interested investors to sign up on the crypto initiative website to join the waitlist.

When I visited the website , I discovered that there is a skeletal investment plan. I clicked on the waitlist, inserted my email and country and joined the waitlist. A notification was sent to my email which instructed me to click on an icon to get secret code but the icon was not functioning. I am still expecting the secret code. The website also have a contribute section where your LinkedIn profile, business information and area of interest is required.

The SANGO initiative proposes to achieve the following:
1. Establish a comprehensive legal framework for cryptocurrencies
2. Build a Central African Backbone (CAB) internet interconnection that will power the entire CAR digital transformation
3. Allocate natural resources such as gold, diamond, uranium, iron ore, copper petroleum, etc to crypto projects
4. Build a Crypto Island that would be declared as crypto economic zone that would be powered by blockchain technology
5. Introduce a SANGO wallet to send, receive and store Bitcoin
For a comprehensive detail about the SANGO initiative you can click on the link

Although I am still skeptical about the workability of this lofty SANGO initiative but I will follow-up this project to ascertain its effectiveness and efficiency.  

[d5000]

I was able to download the presentation from sango.org and also to get the secret code for the waiting list. The website is however not working very well, the secret code should however appear eventually.

I would be a bit cautious to prematurely write off the CAR adoption as an "exit scam attempt". Generally the items listed in the presentation make sense - e.g. the move is presented as a part of a more general digitalization strategy, with the Central African Backbone (a fiber-optic backbone project) and a World-Bank-funded digitalization program for the public sector being the base which could make Bitcoin adoption possible. A wallet and different investment incentives are mentioned, and it seems payment for some services provided by crypto investors could be done partly in natural resources like gold, uranium, diamonds or nickel.

One thing however is that they talk about a "Crypto Island", a proposed free economic zone. They also call it "Sango Island" in the presentation. I haven't found a Sango Island in the CAR, so it may be a new name (Sango is one of the official languages of the CAR and one of the predominant ethnic groups, so it looks more like a "trademark"-style name) for an existing island.

My question is: does anybody have information about which island is meant? I'm suspecting it's the Ile Bongo Soua just south of Bangui, as there are not really many islands in the country (according to Google Maps) and the other larger islands seem to be located in remote, almost unpopulated areas of the country. As the CAR is landlocked, there are only river islands, and only few of them are large enough to host really a free economic zone.

PS: Thinking again about it and looking again at the presentation, it may be possible that they're talking only about an "island" in the Metaverse, and the "estates" on this "island" may be backed by "normal" land in the CAR.

[GiftedMAN]

Total countries in the World: 195

Countries accepting bitcoin as legal tender in 2022:
1. El Salvador.
2. Central African Republic

Countries accepting bitcoin as legal tender in 2021:
1. El Salvador.

Countries accepting bitcoin as legal tender in 2020:
-

... I think we go up parabolic soon

When I got the information about Central African Republic accepting bitcoin as a legal tender I was delighted because when other African countries see the change and the impact bitcoin brings, they will all do same, here in Africa they always wanna see the usefulness of any project before starting it. The growth will be massive in few years to come.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Those of us who live within the borders of the United States must accept official U.S. legal tender for the payment of debts. I believe that this is the only meaning of 'legal tender'.

I snipped out the last part of your post, where it seems you were on the right track as to what "legal tender" means, but it doesn't mean merchants have to accept it; it means the government has to accept it for payment of whatever debts their citizens owe them (like taxes).  A merchant is well within its rights to only accept bitcoin if it wants to, or USD, or whatever (at least in the US).

I haven't read through this entire thread, but I read the first page and it isn't clear to me why this is a such a big deal.  Everyone here is heaping praise on CAR for this move, but such praise was also heaped on Microsoft, Dell, and other companies when they started accepting bitcoin--and then there wasn't exactly an outcry when they stopped, which CAR could also do.  El Salvador could also revoke bitcoin's legal tender status as well, so the skeptic in me isn't jumping for joy about this news. 

What remains to be seen is how many people in those two countries actually use bitcoin to pay their taxes and whatever else.