Top cryptocurrency news: Board urges Bank of Central African States to introduce a common digital currency

According to reports, the Bank of Central African States, also known as Banque des États de l'Afrique, which provides services to Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo, may be inching closer to announcing the launch of a central bank digital currency, reportedly at the request of its board.

In an effort to modernize payment systems and advance regional financial inclusion, the board, according to sources' Friday report, wrote an email urging the regional bank to launch a digital currency. In April, the Central African Republic, often known as CAR, approved laws making Bitcoin (BTC) the country’s legal tender. However, the CBDC, or central bank digital currency, has not been accepted at that time.

In October 2021, the central bank of Nigeria became one of the first in the region to introduce a CBDC named the eNaira, while the Reserve Bank of South Africa is still investigating the potential applications of a CBDC through its Project Khokha program. The Bank of Central African States also condemned Nigeria's acceptance of BTC as legal tender, calling the action "problematic" and something that might have a "significant negative impact" on the monetary union of Central Africa.

Sub-Saharan African nations may have a difficult time bringing cryptocurrencies and CBDCs to places with insufficient energy for both mining and transfers. According to World Bank statistics from 2020, the CAR and Chad both rank among the countries with the lowest percentages of people who have access to electricity, at 15.5 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively.

Following the country's adoption of Bitcoin , CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra announced in June that the nation will also embrace the Sango project, a cryptocurrency initiative that featured a "legal crypto center" and a special economic zone in the virtual world.  Africa continues to be one of the fastest growing digital asset markets in the world; according to a March study, crypto transactions in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Dakar surged by as much as 2,670 percent compared to the previous year.

Read also: Central African Republic's digital currency to commence in late July