At this point South African traders haven’t truly seen their fair share of local stablecoins. In 2018 we saw our first stablecoin surface, xZAR. Since then other stable coins have emerged such as eZAR in 2019, following closely ZARP and CZAR were announced in the later months of 2021.Unlike the African stablecoin declared by the Nigerian government, eNaira, these stablecoins are not government-sanctioned. However ZARP is the only stablecoin pegged to the South African Rand that is bank approved and transparently audited.
ZARP was founded by Simon Dingle and Kenny Inggs, both Kenny and Simon have substantial experience in crypto related exchanges as well as digital asset tools. Simon having worked at Luno previously named Bitx, which is the largest centralised cryptocurrency exchange in South Africa and Kenny who worked as a programmer in his early career and went on to co-found multiple projects which included 22seven where Simon also worked at one point, 22seven is a money management tool designed for South Africans.
Together these co-founders have brought about what they’re naming a “true” stablecoin. ZARP was created when Kenny and Simon were looking for a Rand stablecoin to use in their projects, to their astonishment they could not find one and this sparked the idea to create their own stablecoin.The reason for their choice of “true” stablecoin in the description of ZARP is because Minting Partners buy ZARP then the company behind ZARP creates new tokens to match the amount of ZARP being acquired. The physical Rands are kept safely in their treasury until a partner wants to withdraw physical Rands from the company, at which point they then destroy their ZARP tokens, and send the physical rands to their bank account.
This is significant because this stablecoin has a treasury that is audited by Kempen audit.Therefore this is the only local stablecoin in South Africa that can provide verified attestation reports on their holdings, the last report was released on the 19th of August 2021, hence the naming of this coin a “true” stablecoin. Put your trading socks on and stay tuned this one is going to be big!
