Might the adoption of bitcoin by CAR be beneficial to Russia? Sure. As it will be to China, to the UAE, to Turkey, and to nearly every country -- except France.

But is Russia behind CAR's adoption of bitcoin (i.e., persuaded and/or assisted them in this decision), I highly doubt it. But Russia was probably not bothered with CAR's decision to adopt Bitcoin, once they learned of it.

However, CAR is a country with a small population and an even smaller economy. It's simply not that big of a concern to most any country, outside of France.

CAR's adoption of Bitcoin is an asymmetric bet, just as is bitcoin an asymmetric bet. There is only a small downside if their efforts are either later overturned or simply the plans don't pan out. But there is a nice upside, relatively speaking, if adopting bitcoin were to result in increased foreign direct investment, increased cross-border trade, productivity gains (by reduction of financial and payment system friction), etc.

In other words, there are no losers in this, except France. And if there are winners, it will mostly be the current leadership of CAR and to a lesser extent, Central Africans (i.e., the people of CAR).