Watr Foundation Launches Pioneering Blockchain Ecosystem, Empowering Physical Resource Industry To Achieve ESG Goals

Watr will leverage a sovereign instance of Algorand, bringing game-changing transparency to commodity footprints

Watr Foundation, in partnership with Algorand, announced the launch of the Watr Ecosystem: a next-generation, KYC-AML-screened Layer 1 open blockchain ecosystem with verified identities that will bring decentralized finance (DeFi) technology to commodities. Verified identities will enable the resource industry to leverage blockchain and DeFi technology. They will enable the industry to achieve new levels of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) transparency, empower consumer choice in procurement and investment decisions, and democratize financing in the end-to-end of commodity supply chains. The Watr ecosystem is designed to unleash a race-to-the-top in creation of new commodity contracts and products, vastly expanding differentiation in what are today viewed as fungible commodities. The Watr blockchain ecosystem is set to go live in early 2022.

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The Watr ecosystem will be a first-of-its-kind, public and sovereign instance of the Algorand MainNet that aims to become the destination for sustainable commodities and applications across supply chains, shippers, buyers, financiers and producers.

It is developed in a strategic partnership with Algorand, a leading enterprise protocol developed by Turing award winning founder Silvio Micali, and based on a proven and innovative pure proof of stake technology. While sovereign, the Watr blockchain will still be connected to and interoperable with the Algorand ecosystem, allowing Watr’s liquidity and ecosystem dapps to operate seamlessly across the two chains and vice versa.

“Watr’s vision to enable a commodities market that is grounded in transparency, environmental responsibility and activism by all participants is aligned with Algorand’s leadership as a carbon-negative network,” said W. Sean Ford, COO of Algorand. “We commend the deeply experienced team as they reach this new milestone in digitizing core components of commodities on Algorand and create abundant transparency with regards to the footprint of each and every commodity in the ecosystem.”

Watr will be the first multi-institutional, self-governing, public blockchain designed to accommodate the privacy, auditability, compliance, and finality requirements of commodities. It will be set up to support and grow a broad decentralized application (dapp) network, including trade execution, exchanges, tokenized assets, new commodity classes and contracts, stablecoin issuance and decentralized (DeFi) lending capability.

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“This is the inflection point to digital and transparency for commodity markets. With clear compliance guardrails and a pioneering cross-section of industries at the table, Watr’s mission is to drive financial inclusion, transparency and customer choice,” said Maryam Ayati, President of the Watr Foundation Council. “We believe this next iteration on resource models should be co-created in mutually-owned profit models. It is a privilege and comfort to be collaborating with the pioneers of decentralized technology, blockchain, industry, and environmental products in bringing this blockchain ecosystem to life.”

On Watr, smart digital contract modules will govern the pricing, trade, and financing of the physical resources society consumes, including metals, energy, and agriculture to the shipping and financing that underpins these industries. The identity module built into Watr enables consumers (and financiers) to define the specific footprint they want their consumption to finance. At the same time, suppliers will be able to create new classes of resources based on the environmental footprint their commodities leave behind. The endgame is to create a transparent marketplace using new technologies applied within the existing regulatory frameworks, where every ESG attribute itself is turned into a commodity with a market-based price, starting with a decentralized market place for carbon.

Watr will launch with Fiat currency and a multitude of traced and compliant crypto currencies, including stablecoins, onboarded as means of payment and transaction.

TrustToken, the creator of the billion-dollar TUSD stablecoin, has invested in Watr. From creating TUSD, TrustToken has developed strong expertise in compliance and digital assets and will act as an advisor to help the Watr Foundation develop a powerful compliance and stablecoin strategy to bring the commodities industry on-chain.

“What Watr is doing is tremendously exciting – bringing the efficiency and transparency of blockchain to the $5 trillion commodities industry. We believe this is a fundamentally better way to transact these assets, and so an industry-wide shift is inevitable,” said Rafael Cosman, CEO of TrustToken.

On behalf of Watr Foundation, Neo has been convening a cross-industry coalition to span consumer goods, mining, energy, agriculture, shipping, trading, blockchain giants, and capital markets.

Through a partnership with HC Group, the coalition is bringing together individual commodities and blockchain leaders to co-create, build, and invest in new blockchain business models for sustainable commodities and to trade on Watr.

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