The Central African Republic (CAR) has announced a plan to tokenize more than 1,700 hectares of state-owned land using its national meme coin, $CAR, built on the Solana blockchain.
The move, formally declared by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra on May 29, is part of a broader effort to link digital assets to the country’s natural resources and create a framework for online land access and potential mineral exploitation.
According to the presidential decree shared by Touadéra on social media, the targeted land is located west of the village of Bossongo, about 45 kilometers from the capital, Bangui. The initiative will begin in June and is being promoted as a gateway to “a new era of access and transparency.”
The decree specifically references CAR’s mining code and legal provisions from 2023 that enable the tokenization of national resources - indicating the land may be earmarked for gold, diamond, or other extractive industry use.
This marks a significant shift in CAR’s national crypto experimentation. While the country previously launched a tokenized governance initiative through Sango Coin in 2022, that effort ultimately stalled amid legal pushback, technical failures, and loss of investor confidence. The new project, by contrast, leans more heavily on market incentives and decentralized token trading, leveraging the speculative dynamics of a meme coin to anchor state resource policy.
Market Surge Preceded the Announcement
The $CAR token - first launched in February 2025 - saw a notable price spike even before the official land tokenization announcement. Trading data shows the token nearly doubled in price from $0.025 to $0.05 between May 26 and May 29, gaining 21% on the day of the decree alone. Its total market cap reached approximately $56.6 million with more than 18,400 holders.
Though $CAR remains down over 92% from its brief all-time high of $0.70 following its launch, the renewed attention around land tokenization has provided the token with a temporary resurgence. Analysts attribute much of the recent momentum to speculative interest driven by political signaling, rather than organic demand for the token’s utility.
The project’s timing has raised questions about coordination between government communications and market movements. While Touadéra's announcement provided the first official confirmation of the land plan, the token’s price rise earlier in the week suggests information may have leaked or been anticipated by traders.
Tokenized Land: Symbol or Strategy?
While the details of the land tokenization model remain sparse, the concept follows a broader global trend of applying blockchain to real-world assets (RWAs). From luxury real estate in the U.S. to carbon credits and commodities in Asia, tokenized asset platforms are increasingly used to fractionalize ownership, provide on-chain proof of title, and expand market access.
In CAR’s case, the land likely remains under state control but may be offered in concession-like structures that allow buyers or investors to claim rights or exposure to parcels using the $CAR token as the access medium. The exact rights attached to these tokens - whether for speculative trading, mining access, or physical development - have not been detailed.
However, the inclusion of mining-related legal references in the presidential decree strongly implies a connection to extractive resources. CAR’s mining sector has long been a controversial arena, marked by opaque concession deals and foreign involvement - particularly from Russian-linked entities such as the Wagner Group. The use of tokenization in this context raises both transparency hopes and governance concerns.
$CAR vs. Sango: A Strategic Rebrand?
The pivot to $CAR and tokenized land follows the quiet collapse of CAR’s previous national crypto experiment, Sango Coin, launched in 2022 as part of a broader attempt to position the country as a blockchain-friendly jurisdiction. That initiative, which was pitched as a vehicle for citizenship, e-residency, and land sales via Bitcoin and Sango, failed to attract meaningful adoption and drew legal scrutiny from CAR’s Constitutional Court.
By April 2025, the Sango team admitted the original structure was being abandoned, stating on X (formerly Twitter) that the project would not continue “in its previous form.” Instead, a reboot was teased with the promise of a revised direction “that honors the initial ambition.”
In this context, $CAR appears to function as both a symbolic replacement and a realignment with a different kind of crypto narrative - more aligned with the meme coin-driven speculation that has fueled attention in other politically-linked tokens, such as the Trump-related $TRUMP or El Salvador's early Bitcoin-driven campaigns.
Unlike Sango, which had a formal legal framework and a rigid top-down distribution model, $CAR was launched without much regulatory detail. Its branding is overtly populist and its initial promotion included giveaways and engagement rewards. Notably, President Touadéra previously offered the top 100 holders a chance to meet him in Dubai, echoing promotional tactics common in influencer-backed Web3 tokens.
CAR’s land tokenization announcement feeds into a growing global conversation about the role of blockchain in state-led resource management. While many governments are exploring blockchain for registries and transparency tools, few have directly linked natural assets to speculative tokens in the way CAR appears to be doing.
The model may be attractive for financially constrained nations looking to monetize unused or underutilized land by tapping into crypto market liquidity. However, it also raises questions around jurisdiction, enforceability of tokenized rights, and whether speculative crypto markets are suitable vehicles for managing sovereign resources.
Additionally, CAR’s alignment with the Solana blockchain places it within a fast-growing ecosystem of tokenized assets, but also makes the project dependent on the uptime, fees, and community dynamics of an external public chain. Questions of data integrity, legal recourse, and dispute resolution will likely arise if tokens linked to land ownership or mining rights become widely traded.
Final thoughts
Whether this initiative succeeds in creating real economic impact or simply becomes another episode in CAR’s experimental crypto narrative remains to be seen.
What’s clear is that the country is moving rapidly to entrench blockchain technologies - not just as infrastructure, but as active instruments of policy, speculation, and international visibility.
As tokenization of real-world assets expands globally, CAR’s latest move could serve as either a cautionary tale or an early case study in the geopolitical ramifications of state-linked crypto experiments.