{"id":11134,"date":"2025-09-18T17:31:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/kenya-places-solana-at-center-of-national-digital-coin-experiment\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:31:07","slug":"kenya-places-solana-at-center-of-national-digital-coin-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/kenya-places-solana-at-center-of-national-digital-coin-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya places Solana at center of national digital coin experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">Kenya is preparing to launch a state-backed digital coin on Solana\u2019s high-throughput infrastructure, a technological gamble that targets its massive microtransaction economy and signals its intent to shape Africa\u2019s role in the global digital marketplace.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_c5f6bdd534f0b1e7f33051a1a4e3da56\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Kenya is planning to launch state-backed digital coin on Solana, targeting its micro-transaction economy.<\/li>\n<li>Former PM Raila Odinga said the initiative would position Kenya as a leader in Africa\u2019s digital finance.<\/li>\n<li>Public reaction was mixed, with skepticism over past Solana-linked national token failures.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>On September 18, Kenya\u2019s former prime minister Raila Odinga unveiled the ambitious plan via a social media address, framing the Solana-based initiative as a foundational step to bolster financial systems and fuel sustainable economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement, light on specifics like a launch date or ticker, was heavy on intent: to empower the nation\u2019s youth by creating direct avenues into cryptocurrency and the wider digital-asset economy. Odinga positioned the move as a bid for continental leadership, stating Kenya is \u201cready to lead Africa and the world in the future of finance.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/RailaOdinga\/status\/1968609830043550098\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A bold bet meets a skeptical public<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The choice of Solana is a technical decision with profound economic implications. Kenya\u2019s existing mobile-money ecosystem, led by M-Pesa, thrives on the very high-volume, low-value transactions that many blockchains struggle to process affordably.<\/p>\n<p>Solana\u2019s architecture, built for speed and minimal fees, directly addresses this need, suggesting a pragmatic aim to build a scalable digital-payments layer rather than a simple digital replica of the shilling.<\/p>\n<p>However, the announcement was met with immediate and pronounced skepticism on social media. On X, Kenyans responded to Raila Odinga\u2019s video with a wave of concern, many questioning if his account had been hacked or if the video was a sophisticated deepfake.<\/p>\n<p>The cynical reaction stems from recent, painful history. Commenters pointed to the cautionary tales of Cuba and the Central African Republic, where state-associated Solana tokens spectacularly collapsed. One user succinctly captured the prevailing anxiety, warning, \u201canother country is coming to empty our liquidity,\u201d arguing that such \u201ccountry coins\u201d don\u2019t \u201calways end well.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Another country is coming to empty our liquidity.<\/p>\n<p>Country coins, Don\u2019t always end well.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 GAYU_BTC (@Gayu_BTC) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Gayu_BTC\/status\/1968635650229358688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">September 18, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>In recent months, several governments have either attempted or been linked to Solana-based national tokens that ended in embarrassment. In January, the official X account of Cuba\u2019s foreign ministry promoted a series of memecoins named CUBA that were rug-pulled within hours, vaporizing a $30 million market cap and leaving investors reeling.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, a token purportedly launched by the president of the Central African Republic, CAR, pumped to a $900 million valuation before crashing amid allegations of it being an elaborate scam fueled by an AI-generated deepfake video of the leader. For observers in Nairobi, those cautionary tales are hard to ignore.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The shifting crypto landscape in Kenya<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The irony is that Kenya\u2019s move represents a sharp reversal from its own central bank\u2019s posture just two years ago. In 2023, the Central Bank of Kenya <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/kenya-central-bank-says-digital-currency-not-compelling-priority-2023-06-02\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">concluded<\/a> that a digital currency was \u201cnot a compelling priority,\u201d citing fading global allure and implementation challenges faced by other nations.<\/p>\n<p>The CBK argued that existing mobile-money technologies were sufficient, a position that makes the current Solana-driven initiative a dramatic U-turn in national policy and underscores how much the political winds have shifted in a short period of time.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, the shift has been reinforced by a policy pivot at the Treasury. In January, Treasury Secretary John Mbadi confirmed that the government was working on a regulatory framework for digital assets and service providers.<\/p>\n<p>Mbadi said Kenya aims to balance innovation with safeguards against money laundering, fraud, and terrorism financing. The revelation followed a draft policy last December, signaling that Nairobi is serious about shaping rules for a sector that, until recently, operated almost entirely in a legal gray zone.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya is preparing to launch a state-backed digital coin on Solana\u2019s high-throughput infrastructure, a technological gamble that targets its massive microtransaction economy and signals its intent to shape Africa\u2019s role&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11135,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11134\/revisions\/11135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}