Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) have become the first Aussie bank to mint a stablecoin after partnering with Fireblocks.
Created for Victor Smorgon Group an investment management corporation in Melbourne, the stablecoin has been called A$DC and will be used by the asset company to trade on the cryptocurrency exchange Zerocap. According to Victor Smorgon Group it only took half-an hour for the transfer to happen with usual time taking more than a day.
Banking Services Lead at ANZ Institutional Nigel Dobson announced that this is believed to be the first stablecoin developed by one of the big four banks.
“[ANZ has] launched what we believe is the first Australian-bank-issued Australian-dollar stablecoin, A$DC, and made the first payment through a public, permissionless blockchain transaction.”
ANZ has said that they’ve worked closely with digital asset domains that include Chainalysis and OpenZeppelin while currently the A$DC is based on the Ethereum blockchain but will eventually move to other blockchains that include Hedera. The Australian Financial Review reported that while in the future it may be available for retail trading, at the moment it is only available to institutional clients.
People online have weighed in on the announcement with Twitter user @EthicalLorax saying “Big news in the #crypto space – will be fascinating to see the impact on existing digital currencies, given this offers all the benefits of the sector with far fewer risks”. While @DefiantNews pointed out that “The move marks a complete turnaround in policy for the bank, which refused to deal with crypto clients in the past”.
Fireblocks is a digital asset custody corporation that has helped to support over 25 different blockchains including Siam Commercial Bank, Revoult and Crypto.com.
