In an announcement that most people had initially dismissed as the whim of a typical entitled celebrity, Senegalese rapper, Akon, in June 2018 unveiled plans to create his own cryptocurrency called ‘AKoin’. Not only that, he also announced that he is building his own ‘Crypto City’ in his native Senegal on 2,000 acres of land gifted to him by the country’s President, Macky Sall. As it turns out, you can’t accuse him of not being a man of his words.
The Senegalese hip-hop star and entrepreneur has now announced that he has “just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal”. Just to add more meat to his claim, he also posted an image of himself with the country’s president holding a bunch of official-looking files, presumably containing the signed papers for the aforementioned Akon City.
At the original announcement back in 2018, Akon claimed that the proposed development will be “a first of its kind 100% crypto-based city with AKoin at the center of transactional life”. According to the official Akoin website, the upcoming city is just a short 5-minute drive from the new Dakar international airport, and is close to the coast. Describing the crypto city as a ‘Real-life Wakanda’, the website also claims that the ‘master-planned city’ will have “everything from residential to retail, parks, stadium, light manufacturing, universities, and schools”.
Do note that Akon and his backers are yet to publish any whitepaper on the proposed cryptocurrency, which makes it well-nigh impossible to know what we’re looking at. Given the steady stream of failed and fraudulent ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) over the past few years, it will be best to take the entire Akon City hype with a pinch of salt until we see something more concrete in the days to come.
