According to reports the Central African Republic has made Bitcoin a legal tender.
Bitcoin being adopted as a legal tender by another country is good news no matter how dire that countries economy really is. I thought we could only go up from when El Salvador became the first, but obviously this is not the case here. Another adoption has to be celebrated anyway as this is all part of the domino effect and another box ticked.
One of the poorest countries in the world with a huge debt burden and a declining GDP per capita this does not bode well and they have nothing to lose by making Bitcoin a legal tender.
Over the last year the CAF has lost around 15% in value and could be one of the reasons for the move towards Bitcoin.
What is interesting to note however even though it is the Central African Republic that has taken this step of using Bitcoin as legal tender there are 6 countries that use the XAF or CFA currency. This was the currency introduced by the French for their colonies in Africa called the Central African Franc. With Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Republic of Congo and The Central African Republic all using the CFA it is not to hard to imagine that these countries would all follow suit adopting Bitcoin.
According to wiki this region has around 55 Million people with a combined GDP of $113 Billion (2020) so not too shabby if this move by the CAR actually brings in the other countries. Trade in this region would make sense using Bitcoin or crypto as it is fast and simple to use and more importantly border less.
What Bitcoin really needs is a major country to stand up, but for now chiseling away increasing the numbers is more important. One becomes two and before you know it you have ten and that is what needs to happen. Having 10 onboard is easier to achieve 20 as the numbers start to move in your favor.
Within the next 5 years we will see so much change take place as this is inevitable that crypto will be used as an official method of payment. Not necessarily Bitcoin but a digital currency from that particular country.
Even in 2022 there is still less than 50% with bank accounts in Africa. This is why crypto adoption is important as it offers far more than what we take for granted.
Back in 2017 the CAR had only 18% of it's population having a bank account leaving 82% unbanked. This may have changed somewhat since then but this number wont have come close to what you and I would expect. In Africa there are more unbanked people than ones who have bank accounts and is a problem that the cell phone and crypto could solve.
I do expect other countries in Africa to take the lead and follow suit within the next year especially those linked by the Central African Franc.