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 …

The Central African Republic (CAR) has become the center of a hot buzz in the crypto world amid various reports of it adopting Bitcoin (BTC) quite similar to El Salvador. However, contrary to popular headlines, the African nation has not adopted BTC as a legal tender; instead, it has reportedly legalized the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial markets. The cryptocurrency bill was introduced by Justin Gourna Zacko, the minister of Digital Economy, Post and Telecommunications on Thursday and was unanimously approved by the lawmakers in the parliament despite a protest from the opposition, reported RFI. The crypto law aims …

Digital twin nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, aren't just reserved for consumer products anymore. Netherlands-based decentralized carbon credit exchange Coorest and conservation consulting firm PLCnetwork of the Southern Hemisphere teamed up to tokenize individual real-world endangered animals at game reserves and privately owned conservation areas in Africa. These wildlife NFTs enable holders to sponsor an elephant, lion, cheetah or rhino. Profits from the sales will go toward food, shelter and security for the animals they represent. Cointelegraph spoke to William ten Zijthoff, founder and chief executive officer of Coorest, to learn more about combining blockchain and sustainability with wildlife preservation. Coorest …

It was 2018 when privacy-focused messaging platform Telegram announced that it was in the process of building a blockchain-based decentralized computer network technology called The Open Network (TON). However, following a lengthy litigation battle that lasted until May 2020 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission over its $1.7 billion initial coin offering (ICO), Telegram had to sever its ties with the project, leading many to believe that TON was done for. That said, far from everyone’s expectations, the TON project seems to have found a new lease on life and is thriving. For starters, the TON Foundation recently …

An executive at Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on the government to conduct cross-border settlements in cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Chamber President Sergei Katyrin sent a letter to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, providing a set of proposals for developing cooperation with African countries, the local state-backed publication TASS reported Thursday. In the letter, Katyrin reportedly advocated the use of CBDCs and cryptocurrencies for mutual settlement and payments as part of Russia’s move into Africa amid Western sanctions, stating: “It seems useful to instruct the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, together with …

The TON Foundation, an organization building on the Telegram-initiated blockchain project, The Open Network (TON), has chosen the TONcoin Fund as its official ecosystem fund. The TONcoin Fund announced on Monday the launch of an ecosystem fund focusing on supporting TON-based projects, securing an initial collective commitment of up to $250 million from major firms within the industry. The fund has earned the title of the TON Foundation’s official incubation partner, meaning that they will support the fund’s portfolio investments. The fund’s contributors included firms like Huobi Incubator, Kucoin Ventures, MEXC Pioneer Fund, 3Commas Capital, the blockchain startup Orbs, TON …

Whatever you prefer to call it — crypto, blockchain or Web3 — this new segment of the digital economy is booming across Africa. If you’ve been sleeping on the sector, now’s a good time to wake up. Why? Well for one, according to analytics firm Chainalysis, Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Led by especially high adoption rates in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania, Africa had the third-fastest growing cryptocurrency economy worldwide during that period. And that’s not all. Chainalysis also found that Africa leads the world in the …

The Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) cautioned the country’s citizens against dealing with “all types of cryptocurrencies” due to “the high risks” that they pose. This announcement came as a reaction to the increasing interest in digital assets among the country’s population, which has been facing three-digit inflation rates since the 2021 military coup. On March 27, the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) published a short announcement from the CBOS declaring that due to high risks, which include “financial crimes, electronic piracy and the risk of losing their value,” citizens are not advised to use cryptocurrencies of any sort. The CBOS …

During the 8th edition of the Blockchain Africa Conference 2022, Cointelegraph's Editor-in-Chief Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr virtually moderated a panel titled "Cryptocurrency Institutional Investment: Increasing Returns and Improving Diversification." Panelists Kalin Metodiev, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Nexo, and Dimitrios Kavvathas, Chief Strategy Officer at Amber Group, focused on the opportunities that institutional investors perceive in the blockchain and crypto space, both in Africa and globally. Nexo is a crypto borrowing and exchange platform that recently began offering crypto custodial services, products and lending services for institutional investors, in partnership with the crypto wing of Fidelity Investments called Fidelity Digital Assets. …

Insurance company Lemonade has partnered with prominent blockchain companies to form the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition (L3C) decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to protect farmers from climate change by offering blockchain-based insurance. The insurance firm founded Lemonade Foundation, a nonprofit focused on creating social and environmental change with the use of blockchain-enabled technologies. The foundation will work closely with members of the L3C including Chainlink, Avalance, DAOstack, Etherisc, Hannover Re, Pula and Tomorrow.io. The climate insurance will take the form of a decentralized application (DApp) on the Avalanche platform. The DApp will also enable farmers to make and receive payments using …

Cryptocurrency adoption in Africa is on the march, despite socioeconomic factors and headwinds. A positive report by cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin shows that crypto transactions increased by up to 2,670% in 2022. An astonishing growth trend, the steep influx relates to the low values that have been observed during previous periods. The number of crypto transactions in Africa constitutes roughly 2.8% of global volumes. Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin, told Cointelegraph that “the adoption of digital assets in Africa will continue to grow exponentially,” adding that “African countries have the highest crypto adoption rate in the world, outperforming even the biggest …

Nearly 150 million people use the franc of the Financial Community of Africa (CFA) on a daily basis, from Senegal in the extreme west to Gabon in the center of the continent. Used in 14 countries, the CFA is pegged to the euro, printed in France and its monetary policy is controlled by Western powers. As Fodé Diop, a Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning developer hailing from Senegal details, “the IMF and the French government still control the currency.” While the official peg to the euro is 1 euro to 655.96 CFA francs, its purchasing power has eroded over time. In 1994, …