Senegalese-American music star Akon’s futuristic Akon City based in his country of birth is set to begin construction in the West Africa country.
According to reports from Bitcoin.com, the plans for the city centre around it being a futuristic technology hub powered by its very own cryptocurrency Akoin, which is currently in early stages of development.
The city is touted to be worth over $6 bln and the contract for the development has already been awarded to American engineering firm KE International. The developer has already secured over $4bln for the initial two phases of development.
Akon City – Real-life Wakanda
Rumblings of a ‘real-life Wakanda’ were reported by the BBC back in June 2018, as Akon revealed plans for the revolutionary city on the West Coast of Africa.
Akon had reportedly received 2,000 acres of land directly from Senegal’s president Macky Sall as a ‘gift’ in order to build the new city which will be located near Dakar, the Senegalese capital.
The first phase of construction of Akon City is expected to begin in the next few months and is touted to be complete by the end of 2023. Primary infrastructure including roads, waste services and a solar power plant will be built in the first phase alongside a Hospital campus, Mall and residential accommodation, hotels and a police station.
In addition parks, a sports stadium, industrial complex and a University have been earmarked for construction in phase one as well. The city will also be largely dependent on renewable solar energy.
The second phase of development is expected to take five years, from 2024 to 2029 and will culminate in the completion of Akon City and its running solely on an economy powered by the Akoin cryptocurrency and ecosystem.
Akoin will be powered by Stellar
The cryptocurrency itself is still in its infancy, with a long road map ahead that is outlined on its official website.
The project’s whitepaper outlines the full plans for the Akoin cryptocurrency and its DApp ecosystem, which will look to capitalize on and cater to the massive market of mobile banking in Africa.
This excerpt from the whitepaper gives a broad overview of how the platform will work:
“Akoin is a multi-currency digital wallet attached to an online marketplace that simplifies local and global exchanges of value. The marketplace will be a hub for DApps, apps, and financial services for entrepreneurs and other users to access and utilize. The platform includes proprietary Atomic Swap technology that allows users to seamlessly transition in and out of the network with fiat, cryptocurrency, or prepaid minutes.”
The Akoin token will run on the Stellar Consensus Protocol which was chosen as the blockchain to power the platform due to the transaction speed of the network and access to liquidity through the Stellar decentralized exchange.
As the whitepaper sums up in its use-cases segment, Akon City and Akoin are set to be intrinsically linked to create an entirely unique smart city.
“Akon City blends leading smart city planning designs with a blank canvas for integrating blockchain into our daily human and business exchanges, all with the goal of inventing a radical new way of existence.”
The platform will conduct an initial coin offering that will distribute 10 percent of the total Akoin tokens, which amounts to 45 million of the 450 million tokens that are set to be minted by the project.
