When the Central African Republic (CAR) announced its new cryptocurrency called CAR in February 2025, it looked like the ultimate viral win. A nation-wide meme coin backed by a head of state? A $900 million market cap in hours? A guy turning $5,000 into $12 million overnight? It sounded like a dream. But within 24 hours, the dream turned into a nightmare - and by February 2026, the CAR coin was a ghost of its former self.
How CAR Coin Was Supposed to Change Everything
The CAR government didn’t just launch a meme coin - they claimed it was a national project. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra said it was meant to "unite people, support national development, and put the Central African Republic on the world stage." The token, called $CAR, was built on Solana and launched on Pump.fun, a platform known for quick, meme-driven crypto launches. The hype was real. Within hours of going live, the token’s price shot up to $0.89. Market cap hit $900 million. Social media exploded. People were sharing stories of life-changing gains. For a few hours, CAR wasn’t just a country struggling with poverty and instability - it was the center of the crypto universe. But something felt off from the start.The Red Flags That No One Wanted to See
The first warning came from the launch video. AI detection tools flagged the footage of President Touadéra as likely fake. The lip movements didn’t match the audio. The lighting looked unnatural. Experts said it looked like a deepfake - not something a government would risk using for a national project. Then came the silence. The official X (Twitter) account for $CAR was suspended within a day. No explanation. No appeal. Just gone. Meanwhile, phishing websites popped up everywhere. Scammers created fake wallets, fake exchanges, and fake links that looked identical to the real $CAR site. People lost money. Fast. But the biggest red flag? Ownership. Over 80% of all $CAR tokens - 800 million out of 1 billion - were held by just a handful of wallet addresses. That’s not how a government project works. That’s how a rug pull works. A rug pull is when the creators dump all their tokens, crash the price, and vanish with the money. And that’s exactly what happened.The Crash: 97% in One Day
The price didn’t just drop slowly. It imploded. Within 24 hours of hitting $0.89, $CAR crashed to $0.029. That’s a 97% loss in a single day. By the end of the week, it was trading below $0.01. A year later, in February 2026, it’s hovering around $0.002. Let that sink in. A coin that once had a $900 million market cap is now worth less than $3 million. That’s a 99.7% collapse. If you bought in at the peak, you’d need the price to rise over 400 times just to break even. Trading volume has dried up. Daily volume on major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase ranges from $96,000 to $23 million - a fraction of what it was during the hype. CoinMarketCap shows only 17,160 total holders. For a coin that was supposed to be a national currency, that’s a tiny number.
Why This Isn’t Just a Meme - It’s a Warning
The CAR coin wasn’t just another meme like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu. It had a government stamp on it. That’s what made it dangerous. The Central African Republic already tried this once before. In 2022, it became the second country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender. That move was widely criticized. The country has no reliable internet for most of its population. Only 20% have consistent electricity. Many people live in conflict zones. How could they use a cryptocurrency when they can’t even charge a phone? Then came Sango Coin - another national crypto project that never gained real traction. And now, CAR. Each time, the government promised innovation. Each time, the outcome was chaos. The CAR coin wasn’t meant to help citizens. It was meant to attract speculators. The land tokenization schemes tied to it - where plots of land could be bought with crypto - had no legal protections. No oversight. No transparency. People were trading real property for tokens with no backing. This wasn’t a financial revolution. It was a high-risk gamble with a national brand.Where Is CAR Coin Today?
As of February 2026, $CAR is still trading - but barely. Here’s what the data shows:- Price: Around $0.002 (varies between $0.0019 and $0.0037 across exchanges)
- Market Cap: Between $2 million and $12 million (down from $900 million)
- Circulating Supply: 995.96 million out of 1 billion total tokens
- 24-Hour Volume: $96,000 to $23 million (highly inconsistent)
- Price Change (Past 30 Days): Down 32%
- Price Change (Since Launch): Down 99.77%
What This Means for Crypto and Governments
The CAR coin experiment is now a textbook case of what happens when you mix politics, memes, and crypto without rules. Meme coins thrive on hype. But governments aren’t built for hype. They’re built for stability, accountability, and long-term planning. CAR tried to use the viral nature of meme coins to solve structural problems - poverty, infrastructure, lack of banking access. It didn’t work. It backfired. The world saw this coming. Crypto analysts, regulators, and even the International Monetary Fund warned about the risks. But the CAR government pushed forward anyway - probably because they had no other options. The lesson? Don’t let a meme replace policy. Don’t let a viral token replace infrastructure. And don’t trust a crypto project that hides its owners, deletes its social media, and uses AI-generated videos to sell it.Is CAR Coin Worth Buying Now?
Short answer: No. There’s no utility. No roadmap. No team. No government support. The original creators are gone. The website is unreliable. The holders are few. The price is stuck in the dirt. Some traders still gamble on it, hoping for a pump. But this isn’t investing. It’s gambling. And the odds are stacked against you. If you’re looking for a cryptocurrency with real value, look elsewhere. CAR coin is a monument to speculation - not innovation.Was the CAR coin really backed by the Central African Republic government?
It’s unclear. While the government announced the token and released a video featuring President Touadéra, AI detection tools flagged the video as likely fake. The official social media account was suspended, and domain registration details suggested the project was run by private individuals, not state officials. Many experts believe the government had little to no real involvement - and the project may have been a scam using the country’s name.
Why did the CAR coin crash so hard?
The crash happened because over 80% of the tokens were controlled by just a few wallets. Once those holders started selling, the price collapsed. There was no real demand, no utility, and no institutional support. The initial hype was artificial - fueled by social media, not real users. When the buying stopped, the selling took over - and the token lost 97% of its value in one day.
Can I still buy CAR coin today?
Yes, you can still buy CAR coin on exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Trust Wallet. But it’s extremely risky. The price is near its all-time low, trading around $0.002. Liquidity is low, and the token has no clear purpose or future roadmap. Buying it now is speculation at best - and a potential loss at worst.
How is CAR coin different from Bitcoin or Sango Coin?
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency with global adoption. Sango Coin was meant to be a national digital currency with a blockchain-backed system for land and resource tokenization. CAR coin had no such system - it was a meme coin with no utility, no governance, and no clear use case. While Sango Coin at least had technical infrastructure, CAR coin was purely speculative and lacked any real development.
Is CAR coin a scam?
Evidence strongly suggests it was. The deepfake video, suspended social media, phishing links, lack of transparency, and massive concentration of tokens in a few wallets are all classic signs of a rug pull. The fact that the government denied involvement and never provided official documentation further supports this. It was likely a private group using the CAR name to attract investors - then cashing out.
What happened to the money raised from CAR coin sales?
No one knows. There was no public ledger showing how funds were used. No audits. No government reports. The money likely went to the early investors and developers who controlled the majority of tokens. Once they sold, the money vanished into private wallets with no trace.
Could CAR coin ever recover?
It’s highly unlikely. For a crypto asset to recover, it needs utility, community trust, and ongoing development. CAR coin has none of these. The project is dead. The government has moved on. The holders have lost interest. The only people still trading it are speculators hoping for a short-term pump - which rarely happens with coins this far gone.