- ASX 200-listed ANZ becomes the first Australian bank to mint a digital asset linked to Australia’s local currency: a ‘stablecoin’ dubbed A$DC
- The Big Four bank minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ-built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform
- In a landmark transaction on Thursday, ANZ delivered the stablecoin to wealth management firm Victor Smorgon Group through digital asset investment platform Zerocap
- Following the transaction, the coins were converted back into a Fiat currency
- ANZ Banking Services Lead Nigel Dobson says stabelcoins give customers a new way to transact, with large amounts of funds able to be moved quickly between different users
ASX 200-listed ANZ has become the first Australian bank to mint a digital asset linked to Australia’s local currency: a ‘stablecoin’ dubbed A$DC.
The company announced in a press release it had minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ-built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform.
The virtual currency was used in a landmark transaction on Thursday when ANZ delivered the Australian dollar stablecoin to wealth management firm Victor Smorgon Group through digital asset investment platform Zerocap. Following the transaction, the coins were converted back into a Fiat currency.
ANZ said a stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency with a value linked to a commodity, currency, or algorithm to manage supply. Essentially, it’s designed to be a safer type of crypto investment than conventional products like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
ANZ’s Banking Services Lead, Nigel Dobson, said the creation of A$DC was an important step towards enabling the lender’s customers to find a safe and secure gateway into the digital economy.
“Stablecoins are a new way for customers to transact and in this case was an efficient and direct way for Victor Smorgon Group to access Zerocap’s digital asset exchange and move funds across a decentralised network,” Mr Dobson said.
“We’re excited to continue to trial our capability and explore how this use case can be applied in other industries and customers in the future.”
Fireblocks CEO Micahel Shaulov said by minting the first Australian currency-linked stablecoin, ANZ was establishing itself as a leader in financial and crypto innovation.
“The financial sector is undergoing rapid transformation and we are enabling institutions with end-to-end technology for plugging into tokenisation, DeFi (decentralised finance), staking and crypto trading,” Mr Shaulov said.
The move from ANZ, which is Australia’s third-largest lender, follows comments from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) last year that the growth of digital wallets could allow for the exchange of tokens or digital forms of money that could be backed by the central bank.
ANZ shares closed 0.57 per cent lower on the ASX today at $27.72 each.
Bitcoin was trading at just shy of $57,800 per coin on Thursday afternoon, with Ethereum at $4083 per coin.