May 25, 2022
By Murtuza Merchant
The Central African Republic, the first country in Africa to make Bitcoin as legal tender and second in the world after El Salvador, Tuesday announced the building of Sango, a crypto island to attract businesses and global crypto enthusiasts.
According to a 24-page document detailing the project’s goals, Sango will be declared a “Crypto Economic Zone” that will allow people to propose, view, and contribute to the future developments of the crypto island, the first island in the Metaverse backed by reality.
The initiative was started by the Central African Republic National Assembly and supported by President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
Intricacies
According to the document, Sango island seeks to link the real world (real estate, fractional ownership) to the Metaverse representation, while adding extra layers for future expansion and allowing users to manage their NFTs in the Metaverse in order to unlock additional functionalities like marketplace, ownership, funding, and tokenization of assets.
Sango will also allow NFT minting in the Metaverse for an additional layer of business services.
The legal framework of Sango includes an E-residency program, citizenship by investment, online business registration, and no income and corporate tax. The legal framework will be put in place before the end of 2022.
Allocation of Resources
The state will support access to the country’s natural resources like gold, diamonds, uranium, iron ore, copper, coltan, cobalt, nickel, lithium, and petroleum.
Bitcoin wallet
CAR also plans to create a Bitcoin wallet to send, receive and store BTC that will be compatible with the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s second-layer protocol for cheaper and faster payments. The wallet will also be compatible with point-of-sale (PoS) for businesses to accept bitcoin payments and feature an integrated accounting system.
The document also mentions plans to finalize the Central African Backbone (CAB) internet interconnection before the end of the year to power its “entire digital transformation,” it said in the document.
About the author
Murtuza Merchant is a senior journalist and an avid follower of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
