The President of the Central African Republic appears to have launched a national meme coin, three years after making Bitcoin legal in 2022. Despite many doubting the legitimacy of the social media posts, the Solana meme coin skyrocketed to a market cap just shy of $900 million before crashing back down.
The official X, formerly Twitter, account of Faustin-Archange Touadéra, the President of the Central African Republic, posted the contract address to a Pump.fun token on Sunday. He claimed it was “an experiment” designed to show how a meme coin can unite people, support national development, and put his nation on the world stage in a “unique way.”
Red flags were raised around the timing of the post as it would have almost been midnight in the Central African Republic. On top of this, the nation’s official languages are French and Sango, but the social media post was in English. As a result, many skeptics believed that the post was the result of a hack—the likes of which we’ve seen big companies and celebrities fall victim to. But when Touadéra posted a video speaking in French, endorsing the token and creating an X account for it, many doubters were silenced—at least temporarily.
“The Central African Republic has always believed in the power and the importance of community,” he said in the video. “Based on this belief, and as a symbol of unity, I am proud to announce the launch of the official meme coin of the Central African Republic.”
This video helped the token soar 1,210% from a market cap of $68.47 million to $897.41 million in just 2 and a half hours, according to DEX Screener. For context, the country’s gross domestic product (commonly referred to as GDP) is $3.03 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. This means, at its high, the token was almost a third of the way to matching the nation’s GDP.
According to the meme coin’s tokenomics page, 35% of the token supply is earmarked to aid with the country’s development, 25% for “creators and company,” 20.7% for liquidity, 10% for charity, and 9.3% for public distribution. Blockchain analytics company Bubblemaps claims that on-chain data matches up with this tokenomics page.
Skeptics resurfaced, however, with some claiming the video is a deepfake and others complaining the token’s site is no longer working. As such, the Solana meme coin crashed 87% to a market cap of $125 million—all within 11 hours of its all-time high. As hope for the meme coin dwindled, the President posted once more, causing the token to spike 196% over just 30 minutes to a market cap of $375 million. With this, the meme coin’s X account was restored and a new website was launched. This video passes deepfake detection service Deepware, with many taking the video as certain evidence the token is legit.
The Central African Republic’s National Assembly did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment via email and WhatsApp. “Thanks to this momentum, we have already begun to explore new opportunities to make CAR meme coin drive real change,” Touadéra said. “We are working on development initiatives and charitable programs that will directly benefit our people and strengthen our economy.” CAR has since fallen 64.7% to a market cap of $132 million. “I promise to come back very soon with major announcements,” he finished.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.