By John Ikani
The Central African Republic (CAR) has become the first African country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, also just the second country worldwide to do so after El Salvador.
This means Bitcoin shall now be accepted as a means of payment thereby making CAR the first in the continent, to make such a move.
Confirming the development in Sunday, Binance CEO Changepeng Zhao tweeted: “The Central African Republic adopts Bitcoin.”
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1518296144450887680
Heritage Times gathered that the adoption became official after Ministers for Finance and Budget, as well as the Minister of Digital Economy, jointly submitted a document, which recognises the cryptocurrency as a legal currency, and presented the legal framework for crypto regulation.
The Opposition parties in the nation have also supported the move, with the hope the digital asset can benefit country.
What you should know
CAR has been facing the turmoil of a civil war that has been going on for the last decade, ruining the nation’s economy.
The country’s per capita income is nearly $400, which is one of the lowest in the world and is mostly become of the unorganized sector of food, alcohol, medicine, and jewelry.
With Bitcoin becoming legal tender, there is bound to be a lot of economic and technological development in the country.
What’s happening in crypto markets?
CAR’s adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender comes at a time that cryptocurrency markets is bleeding red as major top tokens witness a downtrend in the last 24 hour.
The global market cap is down by 1.97 per cent in the last 24 hours and is at $1.80 trillion as of 8:00 AM IST, CoinMarketCap data showed.
Bitcoin is down by 1.87 per cent and is trading below the $40,000 mark at $39,0416. Ethereum also plummeted and is at $ 2861 after sliding down 2.58 per cent.
The USDT Tether stablecoin showed no change in its value in the last 24 hours.
Whereas the USDC stablecoin went down by 0.01 per cent.
The BNB token has gone down by 2.58 per cent.
XRP Ripple is also down by 3.49 per cent in the last 24 hours.
The ADA token showed 2.21 per cent downtrend.
Terra LUNA is down by 1.93 per cent in the last 24 hours.
Solana fell by 3.50 per cent. Avalanche is down by 3.97per cent.
Overall, the major top tokens slid down from their positions in the last 24 hours.
