The introduction of Bitcoin through the Central African Republic is mainly about geopolitics

Imagine a land -wrapped, coup -endangered country in which armed groups control a large part of the territory outside the tiny capital and in which people with an average income of $ 493 do. What measures would you take to improve the fate of its long -standing citizens that most small farmers are? Improving the education system, building country roads, distributing fertilizers?

If it was your answer to make Bitcoin a legal means of payment, you are clearly up to date. Last month, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, President of the Central African Republic, announced that his country will be the second country in the world to El Salvador, which introduces the rocking cryptocurrency as his country.

The 65-year-old president, who did his doctorate in mathematics, said that Bitcoin's introduction would improve the "Citizens' Conditions" and put Car "on the map of the boldest and visionary countries in the world".

not to mention the nagging of the opposition-obviously Fiat currency flat-earlers-that warned that the introduction of Bitcoin could deteriorate relationships with international institutions and to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion. The country's tax rate is less than 10 percent of the gross domestic product. How deep do these no ones believe that it could work?

in a country in which 85 percent of people have neither access to the Internet nor electricity, this step can be easily ridiculous. Even with Bitcoins deflationed rate of around $ 30,000-less than half of the high of the last November-the average person in the tsar would need most of 60 years to buy a single coin.

el Salvador's experiment has not exactly left traces. Only a few Salvadorians seem to have used Bitcoin - which is really more of an asset than a medium of exchange - either to send transactions or carry out transactions. According to Bloomberg, the government of El Salvador spent $ 103 million for $ 2,301 bitcoins, although they have fallen by more than 40 percent since the country's first purchase. A alleged $ 1 billion bond (the proceeds for a volcanic-operated crypto mining center and the purchase of even more Bitcoin) was postponed for unknown reasons.

The new course of Car has more to do with geopolitics than with economy. Before Bitcoin, the only official currency of the former French colony Ubangi-Shari of the CFA-Franc, a decorative taste of colonialism, which is used in six central African and eight West African countries. (The other currency in El Salvador is the US dollar "Gringo".)

The CFA-Franc is linked to the euro and is guaranteed by France. Although this has brought a certain amount of macroeconomic stability, this was at the expense of monetary independence. Many in the region are annoyed. In 2017, Kemi Seba, a Senegalese activist, set off a 5,000-CFA note (about $ 8.20), a gesture of the defiance that, together with the man who presented him with the lighter, brought him a day in court. Try this with a cryptocoin.

hippolyte fofack, chief economist of African Export-Import Bank, sees the CFA as a plot to keep African currencies artificially high. While this for foreign companies who want to make profits and local elites that like to shop in European capitals fits, it suffocates industrialization by making exports unable to compete.

fofack welcomes the Bitcoin advance of Car as a way to undermine the CFA-Franc, a step that Chris Maurice, Managing Director of the Yellow Card cryptocurrency exchange, described a large middle finger for the French economic system ".

When Car is suppressed, it takes a look at his new Russian friends. Touadéra owes his presidency of Russian mercenaries to the Wagner Group, who helped to ward off a rebel army in 2020 that wanted to overthrow him.

that has its price. Russian activists should not only commit human rights violations, but also operate a gold mine and even raise taxes at the border. Russia denies that his “consultants” are either involved in military or commercial activities. Nevertheless, if this were the case, Bitcoin could make it plausibly easier to move money into and from the country or to bypass sanctions that were imposed in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

Whatever the motifs of Car are, the idea could prevail well. Young people in Central and West Africa who have little trust in their governments and little opportunities to make good money were attracted to the flame of cryptocurrency like moths. Krypto had become so popular in Nigeria that the central bank banned it - only to introduce the first digital currency to the Enaira last October. You could call it Bitcoin Fomo.