According to Cointelegraph, a New Zealand dollar-pegged stablecoin, NZDD, has been launched through a partnership between New Zealand crypto exchange Easy Crypto and Australian blockchain development firm Labrys. The stablecoin will be backed 1:1 with cash in trust and regulated by the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority. Initially, NZDD will be live on Ethereum, with plans to expand to Polygon, the BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Coinbase's Base. Easy Crypto was motivated to launch the stablecoin as it claimed it was harder for New Zealanders to maximize their profits when using U.S. dollar-pegged tokens.
Easy Crypto co-founder and CEO Janine Grainger said the NZDD bridges the gap with traditional finance and claimed it would 'move NZ forward as a nation, giving us a digital, programmable currency that can do everything the NZD can do.' Alongside the stablecoin, Easy Crypto introduced a multicurrency self-custody wallet protected by multiparty computation cryptography by enlisting the user's 'trusted social circle' with parts of the key instead of a seed phrase. An August report commissioned by the New Zealand's parliament said the country has taken an 'agile' approach to crypto regulation. It recommended that problems are 'addressed as they arise and that the government creates coherent and consistent guidance on the treatment of digital assets under current law.'
Earlier attempts to launch a NZ dollar-pegged stablecoin include the 2021 launch of $NZDs by Australian financial services provider Techemyny. However, in 2022, the bridge used by the stablecoin was blacklisted after the hack of the DFX Finance protocol in November 2022, leaving a large portion of funds stranded on the Polygon blockchain.
