$CAR, a memecoin allegedly created by the government of the Central African Republic, is facing major backlash after an unprecedented 2,450x price rally.
The $CAR coin was created under the leadership of Faustion-Archange Touadéra to ‘engineer economic prosperity.’
The launch of the $CAR token on pump.fun was followed with heavy skepticism as even the source of the initial announcement and the project’s validity were questioned.
Even though the project gained momentum after its launch, many critics cited the risk of deepfakes during the announcement.
$Car and the Central African Republic’s Interest in Cryptocurrency
The Central African Republic became the first African country to approve Bitcoin as legal tender back in 2022. However, the decision was withdrawn almost immediately after their central bank cited issues around it undermining the local currency.
Despite this, the presidency hasn’t stopped pushing the idea of cryptocurrency, launching the $CAR memecoin.
Within just hours of launch on pump.fun, the market cap of $CAR rose swiftly to $530 million. It saw an increase in price from $0.28 to $0.67. Market activity around the memecoin was abuzz, as indicated by the exponential rise in trading volume.
The market cap for $CAR is approximately $289.2 million, and despite controversy, it still shows strong investor interest.
LookOnChain analytics reported a trader made $12 million in 3 hours, a 2,450% gain from his initial $5k investment.
The Token’s Deepfake Controversy
The integrity of the announcement supposedly made by the President of the Central African Republic on the launch of the $CAR memecoin was called into question after it was flagged as suspicious by AI-based deepfake detection tools.
The AI Deepware reported that there was an 82% chance that the video was a deepfake. This immediately raised concerns over the validity of the announcement as more enthusiasts criticized it.
Following this, more attention has been paid to the official website domain registration. The domain was registered just three days before the memecoin launched. The shortness of its domain registration before launch also drew concerns about its real source.
Namecheap, the domain provider, also suspended the domain because of an ‘abusive service.’ Despite this, the official website for $CAR is still active.
READ MORE: Cardano Price Crash Explained by a 95-Year-Old Theory
