Akon is founding crypto city in Senegal, but where’s the whitepaper?

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Grammy-nominated singer Akon’s dream of a crypto city is on the verge of becoming a reality. The project was first announced in 2018, and according to Akon, it’s about to kick off. He took to Twitter recently to announce that he was finalizing plans for the development of his own city.

Akon tweeted:

Just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal. Looking forward to hosting you there in the future pic.twitter.com/dsoYpmjnpf

— AKON (@Akon) January 13, 2020

Akon City is described as a utopian city that the musician wants to build where crypto and blockchain will be the lifeblood of the economy. Previously, he revealed that it would be developed on 2,000 acres in Senegal which he had received as a gift from Macky Sall, the president of Senegal. It’s reportedly only a five-minutes’ drive from one of Senegal’s main international airports.

The futuristic city will run on Akoin, a crypto developed by the star which will be used in all financial transactions. Akoin is a “trusted cryptocurrency with a vision to stimulate and innovate, revenue-generating opportunities that support and empower youth entrepreneurship, economic stability, and growth across Africa and the world,” according to its website.

Moreover, the city will be Senegal’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) city. To this effect, it will fully rely on renewable energy for all its operations.

Crypto City sounds like a real-life Wakanda. However, it’s still too early to tell if it will pan out. For one, Akon is yet to release Akoin’s whitepaper despite claiming to be close to kicking off the development of the project. It was scheduled to be released between Q4 of 2019 and Q1 2020, at least according to the website. Akon also expects to launch a digital wallet, deploy Akoin Foundation Programs, list the token on exchanges, launch a DApp builder for the Akoin blockchain and more by June this year.

While the token and the blockchain platforms are expected in a few months, the development of the city will take much longer, Akon has stated in the past. He previously said, “It’s a 10-year building block so we’re doing it in stages. We started construction in March [2019] and stage two is going to be 2025.”

Akon is right regarding the power of cryptos and how they can transform Africa and reduce its over-reliance on and exploitation by Western powers. However, what remains to be seen is whether launching another crypto will solve anything or just add to the problems already in place. In any case, why launch Akoin when Bitcoin SV is serving Africans excellently already?