Sango Token Listing Postponed Amid Market Downturn

The Central African Republic (CAR) has announced that it will delay the listing of its national cryptocurrency as it looks to weather the market downturn.

A Disappointing Initial Rollout 

According to a Reuters report published on Tuesday, the country, which has been attempting to establish itself as a crypto hub, announced a temporary postponement of its national asset – dubbed “Sango Coin.” 

Citing an announcement on Sango’s Telegram group, Reuters confirmed that the asset’s listing has been postponed due to marketing reasons and the current market downturn. 

Sango was labeled a potential investor-oriented coin that would help strengthen the Central African Republic’s crypto policy and boost direct investment in the country. However, the asset’s initial performance appears to have been underwhelming.

The CAR announced Sango Coin in July, following the country’s significant stretch of crypto adoption moves. At the time, the digital asset was billed to help the country raise $1 billion in direct investment. However, its performance could have been better, with Sango reportedly only selling about $1.6 million worth of tokens.

The developers would likely blame the lackluster performance on the market downturn, which has seen the entire crypto market lose close to $2 trillion this year alone. As a result, they have confirmed that the listing will be pushed to sometime in the first quarter of 2023.

Also delayed is a “release” strategy that would allow current holders of the national asset to sell up to 6% of their coins. For now, early investors who purchased Sango will be unable to cash out their holdings for at least a year.

Crypto Adoption Won’t Stop 

As explained earlier, Sango is part of a government-backed strategy to make the CAR a crypto hub. The country has made massive progress with crypto adoption this year, starting with its acceptance of cryptocurrencies as tools to be used in its financial markets back in April. 

Contrary to popular belief, the bill didn’t mean that crypto would be legal tender in the CAR. Instead, the country’s parliament passed a law to establish a favorable environment for the inclusive growth of crypto. Nevertheless, it was a milestone event, especially for an African country. 

In July, the CAR unveiled its Sango crypto hub with an aim to attract crypto talent and bolster industry adoption. 

The initiative featured several policies, including launching the Sango asset and a citizenship-by-crypto investment policy that would allow anyone to effectively purchase citizenship in the CAR for $60,000 in crypto.

Similarly, investors could purchase an e-residency for $6,000 in Sango tokens, which would be locked for three years, or they could buy a 250-square meter plot of land in the country for $10,000 in Sango tokens, which would be returned a decade later.

While the launch of a national cryptocurrency was relatively welcomed, the latter policy didn’t get as much traction. In August, the Constitutional Court of the CAR ruled that the move was unconstitutional because citizenship shouldn’t be ascribed to a market value.  

Now that Sango has been put on hold, it would be interesting to see how the CAR plans to continue with its crypto adoption play and whether investors who bought the asset early would eventually get any value for it.