In the Central African Republic, Bitcoin became an official means of payment after the relevant law was adopted by Parliament and the President of the country Fosten-Arkange Touadera signed it. This was announced by the head of presidential administration of the CAR Obed Namsimo, reports Reuters.
The financial mechanism of BTC circulation as a means of payment will be finally approved by the Central Bank of the CAR in the near future.
The CAR is the second country that declared bitcoin a legal currency with free circulation in the country. The first was El Salvador.
Bitcoin will act as a legal currency, on a par with the Central African franc.
The country’s leadership plans to increase the country’s budget through such a measure. The Central African Republic is rich in diamonds, gold and other valuable minerals. But with all that, 71% of the population is below the poverty line.
A very interesting point is that Internet coverage is only 11% of the country. For whom is such a measure taken? It does not really seem that it is done for the common people. If an average citizen of the CAR doesn’t have Internet access, he or she can hardly buy a kilo of sugar or a cup of coffee for bitcoins.
Apparently, we are talking about simplification of payments for large and medium-sized enterprises in the country in the international market.
However, such a problem could not exist for companies, producing minerals.
There is also an interesting point. Crypto exchanges in the country are not taxed.
In fact, the law raises more questions than it answers. The benefit of making bitcoin legal tender is not obvious.
You can think of three possibilities:
- A desire for some sort of PR campaign to boost the rating of the existing president;
- A desire to attract to the jurisdiction of the country various crypto-exchanges, which are increasingly experiencing difficulties in different countries (China, the EU);
- An attempt to create a kind of cryptoffshore, which is already an interesting idea.
In any case, it is difficult to speculate without a document in hand. We only know that the law regulates all areas of bitcoin circulation in the country and about preferences for cryptocurrency exchanges in the form of no taxes.