Central African Republic's Memecoin Drops 32% Amid Land Tokenization Controversy

The Central African Republic (CAR) is moving forward with a plan to tokenize over 1,700 hectares of land on the Solana blockchain, a project that has become entangled with a controversial memecoin, opaque governance, and allegations of deepfakes.

What began as a state-led initiative to drive "crypto-powered development" has evolved into one of the most perplexing blockchain stories of the year. At the center of this controversy is the CAR memecoin, launched on Pump.fun in February and promoted by CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra as a symbol of national unity and economic revitalization. The token was introduced with a promotional video featuring Touadéra and a vision to leverage the attention-grabbing dynamics of memes to drive real-world impact.

However, the project quickly faced scrutiny. The promotional account was suspended within 48 hours, and Persian-language crypto outlets suggested the video might be AI-generated. On-chain investigators pointed out that over 76% of the token supply is held by just four wallets. Additionally, domain records revealed that the project website was registered mere days before launch, and no official decree or legal foundation has been publicly disclosed since.

As of the latest reports, the CAR memecoin trades at $0.056, down 32% on the day but still up over 300% month-on-month. Its market cap sits at approximately $56 million, with a total supply of nearly 1 billion tokens. The government has announced that this memecoin will be the sole medium for purchasing tokenized land plots, which are set to go live on June 21. The land, located west of Bangui near Bossongo village, will be offered as NFTs on Solana. However, details remain scarce, with no confirmed interface, published smart contracts, or publicly disclosed land registry integration.

On paper, CAR’s plan could mark a significant breakthrough in sovereign-level tokenization. The sale is loosely tied to the country’s 2023 Natural-Resource Tokenization Law and Mining Code, suggesting potential links to mineral rights. If executed transparently, this would be the first instance of a government selling real-world land plots using a blockchain-native asset on a public chain. However, without legal documentation, regulatory guardrails, or ministerial oversight, the legitimacy of the land sale is in question. No agencies, domestic or international, have validated the offering, and prior efforts, such as CAR’s 2023 “Sango Coin” project, ended in quiet failure after similarly bold claims and no follow-through.

The entire project has been primarily propagated through Touadéra’s verified X account, which posted the initial launch video and subsequent token milestone updates. One post promised to donate $50,000 worth of CAR proceeds to refurbish a school, but no wallet transactions or spending records have been made public. On June 7, Touadéra posted, “On June 21st, the Central African Republic takes a bold step into the future. Tokenized land in Bossongo will become accessible to all, via CAR on Solana. This is more than innovation. It’s inclusion, sovereignty, and opportunity.”

Despite the lack of confirmed institutional custodian of the token’s treasury, published framework for land claim adjudication, and public forum for dispute resolution, the narrative continues to unfold, framed by the president’s posts, on-chain volatility, and crypto community discourse. The official website for the token is limited in information, with much still disclosed as “coming soon.” Skepticism is mounting, with analysts and observers noting striking similarities between CAR and other memecoins, including TRUMP, in terms of launch structure and insider wallet activity. Deepfake detection tools flagged the original announcement video as “likely synthetic.”

Despite this, Solana’s role remains technically confirmed: all trading activity occurs via Solana-based DEXs, and token/NFT infrastructure is being built natively on the network. For Solana, this marks a strange kind of win, a sovereign use case that’s either a geopolitical milestone or a reputational minefield. What’s clear is that the Central African Republic’s latest foray into crypto is no longer just a quirky headline. It’s now a live case study in memecoin monetization, frontier-state crypto politics, and the limits of web3 legitimacy.

The June tokenized land sale will be a litmus test. If real land is sold transparently and funds benefit local development, CAR could help define a new model for state-backed real-world assets (RWAs). But if the sale fizzles into vaporware, or worse, reveals an orchestrated rug, it may enter the crypto hall of infamy as one of the boldest “official” experiments to skirt the line between innovation and illusion.

This is not CAR’s first crypto experiment. In 2022, the country adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and launched “Sango Coin,” a Bitcoin sidechain token intended to tokenize natural resources. That effort failed to gain traction, dogged by governance concerns and low international uptake. The current initiative appears to learn from those missteps by decoupling from Bitcoin, emphasizing tokenized utility, and tapping Solana’s developer community. The experiment is undergirded by a practical question: can crypto offer better land governance in regions where traditional registries are prone to corruption, opacity, and inefficiency?

CAR ranks 171 out of 180 on Transparency International’s corruption index and has struggled with foreign investor confidence in its mining sector, often accused of being captured by armed groups and foreign mercenaries, including the Wagner Group. Tokenization theoretically offers radical transparency: immutable records, traceable ownership, and smart-contract-enabled transactions. Yet it also raises unresolved questions: Will NFT holders have actual legal title or mere symbolic claims? How will disputes be handled? Will international investors be protected under local or foreign jurisdictions?