Singer Akon has finalized plans to build the Cryptocurrency powered Akon City in Senegal.

The 2,000-acre city will be powered by the singer's cryptocurrency, Akoin

Senegalese-American singer and songwriter Akon announced via twitter that he has finalized an agreement to build the 2,000-acre “Akon City” in the West African country of Senegal.

Akon has likened Akon City to a “real life Wakanda,” a reference to the futuristic African country in the 2018 film, “Black Panther.” Last week, Senegalese government officials announced that the 46-year-old artist (whose native name is Aliaune Badara Thiam) had pledged to invest in tourism in the country, signing a deal with the state-owned tourism company SAPCO. Alioune Ndiaye, SAPCO’s secretary-general, told AFP that the deal was a memorandum of understanding, so the size of the future investment was still unclear.

According to a statement released in 2018, Akon City will be built on about eight square kilometers of land near the country’s capital Dakar that has been given to Akon by Macky Sall, the president of Senegal. The land is located “within five minutes” of the Blaise Diagne International Airport.

The city will also be powered exclusively by Akon’s cryptocurrency, Akoin – a digital currency based on blockchain, which is a set of digital records that track transactions chronologically and publicly. The technology which has been described as a “uniting crypto-currency for Africa” is intended to be not just a currency, but also a way to establish credit, borrow money, access government services, and more.

“I think that blockchain and crypto could be the saviour for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology offer a more secure currency that enables people in Africa to advance themselves independent of the government.”

Akon
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