Central African Republic will adopt Bitcoin as legal tender: Report

Published at: April 27, 2022

The roughly five million residents of the Central African Republic, or CAR, will now reportedly be able to use Bitcoin in addition to the country's franc as legal tender. 

According to a Wednesday report from news outlet Agence France-Presse, Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra has signed a bill into law establishing a regulatory framework for the use of cryptocurrency in the country as well as adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender. Obed Namsio, the president’s chief of staff, said the move was aimed at making the CAR one of the “boldest and most visionary” in the world.

#BREAKING Central African Republic adopts bitcoin as legal currency: presidency pic.twitter.com/wjxYWl7W2z

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 27, 2022

Earlier reports on the CAR legalizing the use of crypto in the country’s financial markets did not include adopting BTC as legal tender. Lawmakers reportedly unanimously approved the crypto bill, which was introduced by the country’s Minister of Digital Economy, Post and Telecommunications Justin Gourna Zacko.

The implications of the report would place the CAR on a short list of countries to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. In September 2021, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law went into effect, establishing the crypto asset as currency alongside the U.S. dollar. The Latin American nation is also preparing to create its town Bitcoin City funded by $1 billion worth of BTC bonds.

Related: IMF urges El Salvador to remove Bitcoin's status as legal tender

With a gross domestic product of roughly $2.4 billion, the CAR is classified as a “repressed” economy according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Index of Economic Freedom. It’s unclear what effect adopting Bitcoin will have on the country’s residents.

Tags
Bitcoin
Regulation
Digital Currency
Law
Transactions
Africa
Related Posts
Putin issues orders to combat ‘illegal cross-border transfers’ of digital assets
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed the importance of developing additional measures to fight against illegal cross-border transactions of digital financial assets. Speaking at a board meeting of the General Prosecutor’s office Wednesday, Putin stated that “criminal elements have been increasingly deploying digital financial assets,” which needs special attention from the government. “There is one more point — quite new, but essential: we should take additional measures to suppress illegal cross-border movement of digital financial assets,” Putin said. The President ordered local enforcement as well as the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, or Rosfinmonitoring, to give all their attention to …
Bitcoin / March 17, 2021
BitGo Releases Crypto Wallet Compliance Tool for FATF's Travel Rule
BitGo, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) transaction processors, is integrating a new API into its crypto wallet service to support the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule. BitGo told Cointelegraph on July 14 that the company is the first wallet service to provide an in-house API solution for the FATF’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, known as the "travel rule." Specifically, BitGo is now extending its API endpoints to enable its clients to transfer additional transaction-related data required under the new rule. Intended to provide more transparency, the new tool is expected to enable the exchange of data about …
Bitcoin / July 14, 2020
China Didn’t Ban Bitcoin Entirely, Says Beijing Arbitration Commission
China, one of the world’s most strict jurisdictions for cryptocurrency trading, has not completely banned Bitcoin (BTC), a local non-profit arbitration organization says. According to a July 30 report published by the Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC), China's prohibition of Bitcoin is more nuanced than some have suggested. Bitcoin does not constitute money in China In the report, the BAC clarified China's legal stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and outlined major crypto-related activities that are prohibited by the government. According to the BAC, China prohibits token funding and trading platforms from engaging in exchanges between the legal tender and virtual currency …
Bitcoin / July 30, 2020
No precedent: IRS court settlement doesn't clarify crypto staking taxes
In May 2021, a Nashville couple known as the Jarretts filed a lawsuit against the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over taxes they had paid on unclaimed and unsold Tezos (XTZ) staking rewards. At the beginning of February, news broke that the lawsuit filed by the Jarretts had come to an end, resulting in the IRS issuing the couple a tax refund for $3,793. Confusion among crypto holders Not long after this news made headlines, confusion among the crypto community piqued. One crypto media publication sent a tweet from its official account on Feb. 2, 2022, saying, “BREAKING: IRS …
Bitcoin / Feb. 8, 2022
Crypto Bahamas: Regulations enter critical stage as gov't shows interest
The crypto community and Wall Street converged last week in Nassau, Bahamas, to discuss the future of digital assets during SALT’s Crypto Bahamas conference. The SkyBridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) was also co-hosted this year by FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange. Anthony Scaramucci, founder of the hedge fund SkyBridge Capital, kicked off Crypto Bahamas with a press conference explaining that the goal behind the event was to merge the traditional financial world with the crypto community: “Crypto Bahamas combines the crypto native FTX audience with the SkyBridge asset management firm audience. We are bringing these two worlds together to create a …
Adoption / May 3, 2022