As African nations move increasingly toward developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), one country seems to either have not got the memo, or perhaps badly misread it. In April, the Central African Republic (CAR) became the second country in the world, after El Salvador, to adopt bitcoin as legal tender alongside its existing currency, the CFA franc.
The move comes amid an explosion in cryptocurrency use across Africa — often via informal channels — with central banks struggling to keep up.