Digital rand launched
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 a stablecoin. Specifically, it claims to be the only bank-approved, fully backed, transparent and audited stablecoin for the South African Rand.
For every ZARP token in circulation, one South African rand is stored in the project’s treasury account.
Kempen Audit conducted the last attestation report of ZARP’s holdings on 19 August.
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.
Dingle 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 centralised cryptocurrency exchange.
More recently, Dingle co-founded Inves Capital, a fintech company that specialises in digital assets and blockchain-based projects.
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.
Simon Dingle, ZARP co-founder
Dingle said they launched ZARP to give cryptocurrency users access to rand value on the blockchain and make the rand compatible with decentralised finance (DeFi) 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 said.
“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,” Dingle stated.
In addition to the audit from Kempen Group, ZARP’s smart contract has been audited by the Solidity Finance team.
“We’re confident that we’ve ticked all the boxes in creating the ultimate stablecoin for the Rand,” said Dingle.
The first centralised exchange to list ZARP is Ovex, a South African cryptocurrency platform that recently received investment from global crypto exchange giant FTX.
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.
Dingle said that this means that yield incentives will soon be available on Curve in ZAR value.
Curve is currently ranked as the largest DeFi protocol by the total value locked in the platform, which is $21.17 billion (R323 billion).
Kenny Inggs, ZARP co-founder
ZARP has also been integrated with the Keep3r Network.
Keep3r is a decentralised platform facilitating coordination between projects that need to source outside development operations, with those that can provide those required services.
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).
Asked about Keep3r’s integration with ZARP, Cronje explained that the network’s fixed forex capabilities replicates foreign exchange on the blockchain.
“Forex markets are under-represented in the blockchain ecosystem,” he said.
“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 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.
Andre Cronje, Keep3r Network founder
Asked whether there are plans to support other blockchains, considering the astronomically high transaction fees on Ethereum currently, Cronje said their goal is representation on all chains.
“We have a multichain deployment strategy in place. However, we need to target Ethereum first to maximise integrations,” he said.
“Our next target will be Fantom and then move on from there.”
On the topic of drawing scrutiny from South Africa’s over-zealous regulators, Cronje was unconcerned.
“The current regulatory focus is around exchange control,” Cronje stated.
“The country doesn’t want to leak rand. [ZARP] allows it to stay within the bounds of exchange control.”
Dingle said that ZARP being fully backed by cash reserves offers a clear path to regulation and opportunities for consumers to access practical applications for cryptocurrency without the volatility in value that non-stablecoins are prone to.
“We look forward to working with local regulators in making crypto safe and trusted for South Africans.”
He added that they are only making ZARP tokens available to institutional partners like Ovex, and are not directly providing wallets or any applications that use the stablecoin.
“This will be up to the industry and community to provide, in accordance with regulations as they emerge,” said Dingle.
“ZARP is just providing a stablecoin, and our job is to make sure it is fully backed, audited, and trusted.”
ZARP logo
On whether he is concerned that their South African bank might close their account due to pressure from regulators—as FNB has done by closing the accounts of centralised exchanges, and Standard Bank more recently did to arbitrage providers—Dingle was not worried.
“Our banking partners have approved our business model and thoroughly interrogated our project in terms of risk,” said Dingle.
“We’re proud of the relationship we have developed with them, and continue to work very closely with them to make sure that we are not creating risks for consumers.”
One more thing…
Cronje told MyBroadband that another partnership in the group hadn’t been announced yet — DeFiSwitch.
It allows retail users to deposit rand and earn DeFi yields, with no fees or withdrawal and deposit limits.
DeFiSwitch will route rand in the background to ZARP, which is used in fixed forex to earn yields.
“Ovex is also busy working on a payment rail solution (Zapper/Snapscan) to integrate into DeFiSwitch so that users have ease of use/access.”
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