Centrality monthly update -November & December 2020

CEO Aaron McDonald shares key developments over the past month. To stay up-to-date on the progress of Centrality’s ecosystem, follow us on Twitter and our Telegram Announcements channel, plus join our community on Centrality’s Official Telegram, Instagram and Facebook.

It’s been a big year for our ventures and it’s been a pleasure to support them through so many successes. Here are some of the highlights from the last 12 months:

CENNZnet

Despite all the changes which we have had as a result of the global pandemic, the CENNZnet team has been hard at work bringing their roadmap to life. 2020 has seen some big milestones that I will cover in more detail in the CENNZnet 2020 review (coming soon).

But to give you an overview of some of these highlights:

1. Grant DAOs: In line with our commitment to community ownership of CENNZnet, we opened up some exciting Grant DAO opportunities for the open-source community.
2. Exchanges: 3 new exchanges are now listing CENNZ : ZB, MXC and Bithumb now list CENNZ.
3. Marketing to new followers: Aggressive digital campaigns in China and Korea as well as more global focused projects.
4. Mainnet V.1 went live: The Azalea network was successfully launched in June and we upgraded more than 300,000 Sylo users.
5. Token Swap: Our token swap ran over an 8 week period from August to October. The team are now minting the tokens to go live on the mainnet.
6. Upgrading to 2.0: Pl^g (our blockchain framework) transitioned to 2.0, so the CENNZnet team prepared compatible CENNZnet modules.

CarbonClick

CarbonClick has gone from strength to strength this year, picking up awards and now over 34,000 contributors towards their carbon offsetting projects. Planting almost 8,000 trees.

This year saw the launch of the quick and easy carbon footprint calculator. This smart tool gives users an accurate snapshot of their impact on the planet in just 60 seconds and it’s super easy to use. You can check it out on the CarbonClick website here: https://my.carbon.click/calculator

In the spirit of the season, the team has also released a number of features to help shoppers and sustainable brands:

• The Climate-Friendly Christmas Gift Guide on Instagram features 24 brands who are also on this sustainable journey.
• CarbonClick’s gifting option helps shoppers offset their purchases this Christmas: https://my.carbon.click/gift

As for awards and interviews, there are almost too many to mention, but I’ll have a go:

• CEO, Dave Rouse was featured in M2 New Zealand magazine, NZBusiness Magazine and Breakfast TVNZ.
• CTO, Paul Brady, was named on NZ’s CIO50 list of “New Zealand’s most innovative CIOs”.
• CPO, Jan Ivar Czaplicki, has been accepted into the prestigious Edmund Hillary Fellowship (EHF).
• COO, Michelle Noordermeer interviewed on Breakfast TVNZ with Jenny May.
• CarbonClick won New Zealand’s Sustainable Business Network ‘Climate Action Innovation’ Award 2020
• Finalists for ‘People’s Choice’ award at the Westpac Auckland Business Awards 2020

CentraPay

2020 has been the year of partnerships for CentraPay and boy have there been some exciting ones.

Amatil/Coke partnership

Ever fancied buying a Coke with Bitcoin, well thanks to a stunning partnership with CentraPay you can! Coca-Cola Amatil, the largest bottler & distributor with over 2000 CocaCola vending machines across Australia and New Zealand, now accepts Bitcoin via Centrapay.

The Centrapay/Coke/Sylo partnership owned the internet for almost a week and it was huge news for an industry who are dying to see the integration of crypto payments for mainstream users. Check out the press release here.

Verifone partnership

As if that wasn’t enough the CentraPay team also launched their partnership with payment merchant Verifone. Together they aim to deliver a new contactless payment platform that removes the per-transaction fee businesses in New Zealand typically pay.

Consumers and merchants will be able to process contactless NZD payments, Giftstation Gift cards, accept digital assets, redeem Grab One vouchers, provide product and service feedback, offset carbon, utilise loyalty programmes, send or participate in surveys, and use digital identity solutions — all in real-time! And it all happens with an app and a QR code on any enabled Verifone payment device. Learn more here.

Sylo

The biggest news for Sylo is also the most recent. They have just launched a game-changing update to their back end architecture: Oya, a complete reimagining of their backend architecture that ushers in mainstream decentralisation. Through Oya, Sylo transforms its over a quarter of a million users into empowered participants able to easily take part by either strengthening the Sylo Network through their usage or by extending the power and reach of the network by running a Sylo Node. Learn more here.

Sylo Integrates Tezos to the Sylo Smart Wallet: New Zealand-based software development firm Sylo has deployed wallet support for public blockchain Tezos in their multi-chain wallet-messenger decentralised app, the Sylo Smart Wallet, which currently boasts over 250,000 users around the world. The Tezos blockchain supporting firm TZ APAC is advising Sylo on their technical integration of Tezos, to improve their developer experience and increase adoption of the Sylo wallet in relation to Tezos in the Asia Pacific region. Learn more here.

TrackBack

The Trackback team’s blockchain Trust Alliance NZ had their official launch at the Primary Industries Summit in Wellington on 23–24th November. It was a fantastic event and the team had fun collaborating with its 23 members to work towards a better NZ.

The TANZ digital platform will enable New Zealand producers, growers, exporters, retailers and consumers to easily share trusted data which will:

• Preserve & enhance the global and domestic competitiveness of NZ’s primary industries,
• Ensure consumers understand and are assured of the provenance of their food,
• Solve current data interoperability issues to reduce cost & friction in the market and ensure greater value to all participants.

ARDAT

The ARDAT team have been working hard, developing their partnership with PEAR sports. PEAR Sports is a SaaS and digital mobile solutions company that creates proprietary digital coaching and wellness solutions for enterprises and last year it was agreed that the PEAR Health & Fitness Platform will power the ARDAT Smart Training Community.

Now the platform is up and running, partners can enjoy a scalable solution that helps end-users get meaningful custom fitness and wellness programming, alongside analytics and intuitive administrative software tools to manage it all. With the PEAR Health & Fitness Platform, users can also get personalized training plans to help improve their health, and companies get complete enterprise tools that are designed to scale with their business.

Aider

Big news from the Aider team! ANZ has invested in Aider’s technology in order to honer their mission to offer data analytics to small business.

ANZi Ventures, the bank’s venture capital arm, has made an equity investment in New Zealand-based Aider, which links these data sources together and, through a digital assistant, lets business owners ask questions to get real-time insights. This will help connect small businesses with their customers and gain competitive market insights.

ANZ Bank says it will use a new venture fund investment to connect small business customers with a broad range of data sources, as offering market and competitive insights with new data services becomes a more important part of banking. Check out more here.

CentraPass

CentraPass are working on some exciting projects to help rebound the New Zealand tourism industry. Partnering with Simon McKearney Ex CEO of helloworld NZ and Executive GM of Flight Centre NZ, the team are aiming big and launching the Tourism in Real Time on a Universal Exchange consortium (T.R.U.E for short).

In light of the border closures this year it has become more apparent that NZ tourism needs some rethinking. T.R.U.E. is a Kiwi tourism ecosystem that aims to help all NZ inbound and outbound tour operators and suppliers. It will do this by harnessing world leading travel tech to eliminate waste, cost and complexity. T.R.U.E will deliver an open source product marketplace that helps the entire industry deliver a superior customer experience before during and after whilst retaining more money in NZ.

New Ventures

As well as the abundant successes of our existing portfolio, we have also had the pleasure of welcoming some new teams to the fold.

• BarnBridge
• Next Chapter
• We are Tenzing
• 4RC
• Wave Financial

The stage is set for a fantastic 2021 and the team is raring to go. Fancy getting in on the action? We encourage anyone who has a great idea, or passion for decentralisation to join us on our mission to UNfuck the world.