Central African Republic adopts bitcoin as an official currency

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Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of vir­tu­al cur­ren­cy Bit­coin are seen in this pic­ture illus­tra­tion tak­en tak­en March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

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BANGUI, April 27 (Reuters) — Cen­tral African Repub­lic has adopt­ed bit­coin as an offi­cial cur­ren­cy, the pres­i­den­cy said on Wednes­day, becom­ing the first coun­try in Africa and only the sec­ond in the world to do so.

Despite rich reserves of gold and dia­monds, Cen­tral African Repub­lic is one of the world’s poor­est and least-devel­oped coun­tries and has been gripped by rebel vio­lence for years.

A bill gov­ern­ing the use of cryp­tocur­ren­cy was adopt­ed unan­i­mous­ly by par­lia­ment last week, said a state­ment signed by Obed Nam­sio, chief of staff of Pres­i­dent Faustin-Archange Touadera.

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“The pres­i­dent sup­ports this bill because it will improve the con­di­tions of Cen­tral African cit­i­zens,” Nam­sio told Reuters, with­out elaborating.

In the state­ment, he called it “a deci­sive step toward open­ing up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for our country”.

Cen­tral African Repub­lic is one of six nations that use the Cen­tral African CFA franc, a region­al cur­ren­cy gov­erned by the Bank of Cen­tral African States (BEAC).

Two of the coun­try’s for­mer prime min­is­ters last week signed a let­ter express­ing con­cern about the adop­tion of bit­coin with­out guid­ance from the BEAC, call­ing it a “seri­ous offence”.

“The BEAC learned at the same time as the pub­lic of the enact­ment of a new law on cryp­tocur­ren­cy in Cen­tral African Repub­lic,” a BEAC spokesman told Reuters, adding that the bank did not have an offi­cial response yet.

El Sal­vador became the first coun­try in the world to adopt bit­coin as legal ten­der last year, but the roll­out was ham­pered by scep­ti­cism and it post­poned a pro­posed bit­coin bond in March amid glob­al mar­ket tur­moil. read more 

African gov­ern­ments have tak­en a var­ied approach to reg­u­lat­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cies and blockchain technology.

Nige­ri­a’s cen­tral bank barred local banks from work­ing with cryp­tocur­ren­cies last year before launch­ing its own dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy, the eNaira.

South African reg­u­la­tors have been explor­ing the poten­tial reg­u­la­tion of cryp­tocur­ren­cies and oth­er blockchain tech­nol­o­gy, and Tan­za­ni­a’s cen­tral bank said last year it was work­ing on a pres­i­den­tial direc­tive to pre­pare for cryp­tocur­ren­cies. read more 

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Report­ing by Judi­cael Yon­go; Addi­tion­al report­ing by Bate Felix; Writ­ing by Nel­lie Peyton;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle

Our Stan­dards: The Thom­son Reuters Trust Principles.

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