Akon, the ace singer and performer responsible for coming out with hits like “Don’t Matter", “Mr Lonely" and countless more now seems to be working in a whole different direction. At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on June 18, the singer revealed his plans of having his own city in Senegal, his homeland. What’s more, he envisions the new city harbouring an entirely different life as can be seen elsewhere on the planet. How? Using cryptocurrency.
As unbelievable as it may sound, Akon seems to be very close to completing one phase of the utopian dream. That is, to introduce a new cryptocurrency in the form of ‘AKoin’. In its entirety, the new cryptocurrency is aimed at solving major problems currently prevalent in Africa, including that of “instability and inflation". For this, the ‘AKoin’ project includes a bundle of cryptocurrency powered solutions including an AKoin Digital Wallet from where users will buy, hold and spend AKoins, an AKoin Token that will act as a digital asset, Integrated Decentralised Crypto Apps for entrepreneurs to spend and earn AKoins and partnering brands which will support AKoins transactions.
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While the AKoin Digital Wallet is already being piloted, the larger picture is yet to start. A dedicated website for AKoin mentions the timeline for the entire vision. As per the timeline, the integration of the AKoin with the everyday aspects of the Akon Crypto City will begin from September this year and will continue till September 2019. Following this, an ambition of spreading the AKoin to other developing countries has been indicated.
What is Akon Crypto City?
The futuristic city that Akon has envisioned is being built on the 2000 acres of land which was gifted to Akon by the President of Senegal. The website deems the entire idea as "A Real-life Wakanda" and mentions that the city is “within 5 minutes of the new international airport, close to the coast and a short drive from Dakar, the capital city of Senegal".
In essence, the Akon Crypto City will be a Smart City in terms of infrastructure in which, AKoin will be the central form of exchange for all the daily human and business exchanges. Once completed, the city will be the first-of-its-kind, as a “100% Crypto-Centric City".
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What can we expect?
On many levels, this is an overly-ambitious project but possible nonetheless. The dependence on crypto-currency as a solution to most of the problems faced in the African economy might not be a completely reliable bet. On top of it, Akon himself does not understand the technical know-hows and instead “lets the geeks figure it out", as per reports.
However, Akon has made headlines with a similar cause once before, by bringing light to the African homes through his initiative ‘Akon Lighting Africa’. To date, the stats on the website reveal that the initiative has made possible 1,00,000 solar street lamps, 1200 solar micro-grids, 1,02,000 solar domestic kits as well as 5500 indirect jobs in the 25 countries of its operation. The initiative was so successful that it also managed to garner a USD 1 Billion credit line from international banks.
If Akon manages to pull off the Akon Crypto City as well as the AKoin, the achievement might just overshadow his career as a singer and be the prime reason for people to remember him in the decades to come.
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