Australian blockchain fintech Ettle hopes to introduce an Australian dollar-denominated stablecoin for businesses in 2023, despite a jittery market following a torrid year for the cryptocurrency space.

The startup has just completed a pilot transaction between corporate clients on its stablecoin infrastructure platform using the digital Australian dollar token AUDE. Reserve funds are held in trust by an Australian Financial Services Licensed (ASFL) trustee.

Ettle aims to make the stablecoin infrastructure available for wider use in the first quarter of 2023, initially offering AUDE to companies seeking access to a digital Australian dollar on the blockchain.

The fintech has developed a self-service portal and APIs that allow customers to integrate AUDE into payment flows. To address stablecoin issues, the firm is supporting transactions with cash-backed treasury reserves held in Australia by The SILC Group, a trustee and custodian with an AFSL.

AUDE users can store, convert, trade and send digital Australian dollars on multiple blockchains using a wide variety of distribution partners. Algorand is the root blockchain for AUDE and Ethereum is also available at launch.

Ettle CEO James Hill said further development will take place on other chains as use cases and demand grow.

“We are excited about the prospect of our technology democratizing Australian dollars on the growing web3 ecosystem. We believe that the future success of the web3 economy will depend on the use of trusted and reliable stablecoin infrastructure, which is what Ettle is aiming for,” he said.

“It has always been our intention to build the most robust, transparent, compliant and trusted stablecoin in the world.”

Ettle partnered with NFT solutions firm Meadow Labs in the pilot transaction with one of its software development services contractors.

It saw Meadow Labs hit AUDE using Ettle’s self-service customer portal and then make payments to a contractor through both the Ethereum and Algorand blockchains. The contractor then redeemed AUDE through Ettle’s portal to receive fiat in their bank account.

The transaction was verified by PKF Perthwhereby partner Chris Roos confirms the veracity of the transaction.

“Trust and transparency are now more important than ever within the blockchain ecosystem and even more so for money-backed stablecoins,” he said.

“We have worked closely with Ettle to develop a robust process that allows us to independently verify and confirm that the AUDE treasury reserve is always in surplus over tokens issued.”