A cryptocurrency pegged to the price of the South African Rand, ZARP, is now available on the OVEX exchange and has announced its integration with Curve and the Keep3r Network .
ZARP isn’t a government-sanctioned central bank digital currency (CBDC), such as the one the Central Bank of Nigeria launched at the end of October. ZARP is the first and only Rand stablecoin with full cash reserves and independent attestation from Kempen Group auditors. ZARP’s smart contract has also been audited by the Solidity Finance team.
ZARP was co-founded by Simon Dingle and Kenny Inggs and was implemented as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. It launched on Fantom today and there are plans to expand to other platforms.
Simon Dingle
Dingle, the author of In Math We Trust, is a former technology journalist and magazine editor who went on to work at several start-ups, including personal financial management tool 22seven and Luno (formerly BitX), South Africa’s largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange. Dingle recently co-founded Inves Capital, a fintech company that specializes in digital assets and blockchain-based projects.
Kenny Inggs
Inggs has had a storied career, from working as a programmer at the South African Revenue Service in his early years to co-founding several projects where he also served as CTO, including 22seven. He has also worked as an architect at Old Mutual Bank, Shoprite, and Microsoft.
Dingle said that the project was launched to give cryptocurrency users access to Rand value on the blockchain and to make the Rand compatible with DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols.
“We went looking for a rand stablecoin to use in our projects and were surprised to find that none existed, so we started one ourselves,”
he explained.
“A true stablecoin is backed by hard currency and is independently audited so that users can trust that it won’t lose its peg or that the owners can just mint as much of it as they like.”
“We’re proud to be audited by the Kempen Group who regularly attest our token supply and cash held in our treasury account. Our smart contract has been audited by the Solidity Finance team in terms of application and security, and passed in all categories with flying colours. We’re confident that we’ve ticked all the boxes in creating the ultimate stablecoin for the Rand,”
said Dingle.
OVEX, a South African cryptocurrency platform that recently received a strategic investment from global giant FTX, is the first centralized exchange to list ZARP. ZARP is also listed on Curve, an exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum designed for efficient stablecoin trading at low risk, and supplemental fee income for liquidity providers, without an opportunity cost. This means that yield incentives will soon be available on Curve in native ZAR value. ZARP has additionally been integrated with the Keep3r Network, a decentralized platform designed to facilitate the coordination between projects that need to source outside development operations and those that can provide such required services.
Andre Cronje
Keep3r was founded by Andre Cronje, a luminary in the DeFi world who has been credited with helping to grow the field into a multi-billion dollar industry.
Before Keep3r, Cronje built Yearn Finance, which is currently the eleventh largest DeFi protocol in the space with a total value locked of $6.24 billion (R95 billion).
Keep3r founder Andre Cronje explained…
“The forex markets are under-represented in the blockchain ecosystem. Keep3r, specifically its ‘fixed forex’ component, replicates forex on-chain.”
Stage 1 : is simply on-chain liquidity for forex pairs, with
Stage 2 : focusing on easy currency interchange, and finally
Stage 3 : focused on decentralised on/off ramps.
“ZARP allows South Africans access to DeFi while keeping their ZAR exposure.”
ZARP allows South Africans exposure to DeFi while keeping their ZAR exposure, Cronje said.
“Currently, the routes into DeFi are via ether, bitcoin, and US dollar without being able to keep a hedge with the rand — unless you use more exotic strategies.”
ZARP and fixed forex, via Curve and Convex, finally allows yield products to exist on the South African rand, said Cronje.
Dingle added ,
“As tokenistation revolutionises the global financial system, stablecoins play a vital role in representing fiat currencies in the new world of DeFi. We’ve made one that is safe, trusted and aligns with emerging regulation.”
ZARP is built on the Ethereum blockchain and plans to launch on additional networks soon, as voted for by its community of users.
