CAR's Surprise Memecoin: A Unity Experiment or Deepfake Deception?

The Central African Republic (CAR) made headlines recently with an unexpected announcement: the launch of its own memecoin, CAR. The initiative, described as an experiment aimed at uniting people, supporting national development, and putting CAR on the global stage, was announced directly from the official X account of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

The memecoin was launched on the Solana (SOL) based Pump.fun platform and initially saw an overwhelming market response. Its valuation surged as traders rushed to participate in what was seen as the first-ever national memecoin. However, skepticism quickly followed, with deepfake allegations, website suspensions, and questionable domain registrations casting doubt on the project.

Skepticism emerged after AI detection tools analyzed the president's announcement video. One deepfake detection model, Seferbekov, found an 82% probability that the video was AI-generated, while another, Ensemble, also flagged it as suspicious. However, two other AI tools, Avatrify and Deepware's checker, did not detect signs of manipulation.

The controversy deepened when the memecoin's official X account was suspended without explanation. Hours later, the president's X account acknowledged the suspension and stated that they were working with X to restore it. As scrutiny intensified, Yokai Ryujin, founder of UnrevealedXYZ, pointed out irregularities in how the CAR memecoin's domain was registered.

He noted that the car.meme domain was registered on "Namecheap", a budget-friendly domain provider, only three days before the announcement—a move he described as highly uncharacteristic for a government-backed initiative. The irregularities raised concerns about the legitimacy of the project and its potential impact on the cryptocurrency market.