The leader of one of Africa’s poorest nations has mimicked Donald Trump with the launch of a so-called memecoin, only to see its value immediately crash over concerns the project was an elaborate fake.

Central African Republic has launched a meme coin in what President Faustin-Archange Touadera said was a bid to raise the profile of one of the world's poorest countries.

CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's X account posted about the launch of the country's $CAR meme coin, but even with a $500 million market cap, there were "red flags" raised about the token's launch.

“Cos,” founder of the blockchain security firm SlowMist, discovered a suspicious link listed on the trading platform GMGNAI. Instead of directing users to an official site, the link led to a Linktree page that included a supposed livestream hosted on the video streaming platform Kick.

The Central African Republic’s (CAR) unexpected launch of a government-branded meme coin has sparked intense scrutiny, with deepfake allegations and a sudden website takedown fuelling doubts over the legitimacy of the project.

He pointed out that launching the coin at 1 AM Central African Time seemed suspicious. Although the President claimed to lock the token supply through Streamflow, he still had control. He could cancel, withdraw or dump tokens at any time.