CAR’s president confirms legitimacy of memecoin launch
Following $CAR’s launch on Sunday, several concerns were raised about the possibility that Touadéra was hacked.
The president of the Central African Republic (CAR), Faustine-Archange Touadéra has said that his launch of the $CAR memecoin was legitimate and that he has not been a victim of a hack.
Instead, he said the memecoin was debuted as an experiment to create a community and raise funds to support the country’s development.
Dive deeper
- In a social media post on Wednesday afternoon, Touadéra declared that he was neither hacked nor had his likeness been ‘deepfaked’ in the video he initially posted.
Thank you @TF1 for the clarifications. My account was not hacked, I was not the victim of any deepfake, and I reaffirm my commitment to innovation, blockchain, and the development of @CARMemecoinNews in the Central African Republic.https://t.co/ntJlSgjKHa
— Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@FA_Touadera) February 12, 2025
- A spokesperson for his office confirmed this to the French publication, T1Info, saying that the video published was real and had only been translated to English to address an international audience.
- Touadéra launched $CAR on Sunday night and announced it on social media, initially to wide acclaim.
- However, a closer look at this announcement sparked fears that his page may have been hacked and used to promote the memecoin, a common tactic employed by crypto scammers.
- The video itself failed a test conducted by Mariblock to determine whether it was real or generated by artificial intelligence.
Zoom in
- Social media pages of celebrities hacked to promote fraudulent memecoin schemes are not new and have spiked in recent months.
- Shortly after Touadéra launched $CAR, an X account posing to be the president of the Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi launched a token dubbed $CONGO.
- Shortly after the launch, the creator rug-pulled investors and has since deleted the account.
- Other celebrities such as Kylian Mbappe, Drake, Lara and Tiffany Trump have fallen victim to such scams.
Zoom out
- The CAR has looked to position itself as crypto-friendly. It is only the second country in the world and the first and only African country to declare a crypto, bitcoin, as legal tender.
