Central African Republic Coin
 | |
| ticker | CAR |
|---|---|
| blockchain | Solana |
| launched | February 2025 |
| peak market cap | about 900 million dollars (February 2025) |
CAR was a national memecoin promoted by Central African Republic president Faustin Archange Touadera in February 2025, which spiked toward 900 million dollars on an endorsement video and lost 95 percent of its value within two days.
Central African Republic Coin (CAR) was a memecoin on the Solana blockchain launched on February 9, 2025 and promoted by Faustin Archange Touadéra, president of the Central African Republic. Announced as an "experiment" to support national development and put the country on the world map, it was the first memecoin fronted by a sitting head of state after Official Trump and Melania, and it collapsed within days of LIBRA, the Argentine token that ended the political coin era.
Origin
Touadéra announced the token from his X account, extending the country's history of unusual crypto adventures: it had briefly adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2022 and launched the ill fated Sango Coin project. Doubts surfaced immediately. The project offered no team, roadmap, or documentation, the associated domain had been registered days earlier, and when Touadéra posted a video endorsement, several deepfake detection tools flagged it as likely AI generated, a claim the government's supporters disputed. Kenyan outlet BitKE and others initially suggested the presidential account may have been compromised; Touadéra continued to promote the token, indicating the endorsement was genuine.
Market history
The endorsement video triggered a 1,210 percent surge that carried the market capitalization from about 68 million dollars to roughly 897 million within two and a half hours around February 10, 2025. The peak did not hold. Within 48 hours of launch the token had fallen about 95 percent, dropping through 350 million to around 37 million dollars, amid allegations of insider selling and scam accusations from onchain analysts. Those allegations were never adjudicated, and no party has been charged.
Status
CAR continued to bleed after the crash and became effectively worthless over the following months, with no development activity or utility ever materializing. It is cited alongside LIBRA in coverage of February 2025 as the moment state level memecoins discredited themselves, and in the trenches the token serves as shorthand for the outer limit of the political coin experiment: a sovereign endorsement worth nine figures for an afternoon. A 2026 retrospective grouped CAR with LIBRA as coins traders were blasting all their money into without knowing if they were real, calling both a larp, evidence of how the episode is remembered on CT well after the fact rather than only in contemporaneous press coverage.
References
- Protos: https://protos.com/central-african-republics-95-memecoin-crash-is-a-repeat-performance/
- Coinspeaker: https://www.coinspeaker.com/car-token-surges-1210-as-central-african-republic-president-backs-national-memecoin/
- CoinGape: https://coingape.com/car-meme-coin-crashes-70-after-scam-allegations-heres-all/
- marketscreener.com: https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Central-African-Republic-A-president-a-memecoin-and-a-flash-crash-Crypto-Recap-49062077/
- bitcoinke.io: https://bitcoinke.io/2025/02/the-car-memecoin/
- X post by @MarcellxMarcell: https://x.com/MarcellxMarcell/status/2057728246603821371
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