A stablecoin pegged to the New Zealand dollar has been launched in a collaboration between New Zealand’s Easy Crypto exchange and Australian blockchain developer Labrys. Announced on November 22, the NZDD is backed on a 1:1 basis with cash in trust and is under the regulatory oversight of New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority. Initially available on the Ethereum network, there are plans for its expansion to other networks including Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Coinbase’s Base.
Easy Crypto initiated the stablecoin project, citing difficulties for New Zealanders in maximising profits with U.S. dollar-pegged tokens. Co-founder and CEO Janine Grainger of Easy Crypto highlighted the NZDD’s potential to bridge traditional finance and digital currency, envisioning it as a tool to advance New Zealand with a digital, programmable currency equivalent to the NZD.
Additionally, Easy Crypto has launched a multicurrency self-custody wallet featuring multiparty computation cryptography. This wallet security approach involves the user’s trusted contacts, each holding a part of the key, as opposed to using a traditional seed phrase.
A report in August, commissioned by New Zealand’s parliament, commended the country’s flexible approach to cryptocurrency regulation, advising the government to tackle issues as they emerge and provide clear, consistent guidelines on the legal treatment of digital assets.
Previous efforts to create a NZ dollar-pegged stablecoin include the 2021 launch of $NZDs by Techemyny, an Australian financial services firm. However, this initiative faced a setback in 2022 when a hack on the DFX Finance protocol led to the blacklisting of the stablecoin’s bridge, trapping a significant amount of funds on the Polygon blockchain.
