Tony Volpon, a former director of Brazil’s central bank, unveiled BRD, a return-sharing stablecoin pegged to the Brazilian currency and backed by Brazilian government debt.
Speaking on the “Cripto na Real” program on CNN Brasil, Volpon said the token will be backed by national government bonds that link its value to government debt and aim to give holders exposure to local interest rates. The central bank’s benchmark interest rate is 15%, compared to the Federal Reserve’s target of 3.5%-3.75%.
Volpon said the goal is to make Brazil’s high-yield environment more accessible to foreign investors. While Brazil’s interest rates have long drawn international attention, he said, access to those returns is often limited by regulation, currency frictions and domestic infrastructure.
“The ability to interest stablecoin holders with the interest rates offered by Brazil will obviously be a big draw, especially for institutional investors,” Volpon said during the program.
The former central bank official also suggested that the stablecoin could support demand for the country’s debt, potentially lowering borrowing costs by expanding the investor base.
BRD will enter a market dominated by Transfero’s BRZ, which has a market capitalization of $185 million. Other competitors include BBRL, with a market cap of $51 million, as well as smaller tokens BRL1, which is backed by a group that includes Brazilian exchanges Mercado Bitcoin and Bitso, and Celo blockchain native cREAL.
BRD seeks to distinguish itself as the first real-pegged token to explicitly structure the token to share the proceeds from the sovereign debt with holders.
However, it is not alone. Brazilian startup Crown raised $13.5 million in a Series A round led by Paradigm in December for a similar return-bearing token, BRLV. That token, according to a website dedicated to it, has about $19 million in reals in circulation. The listed contract addresses show that it has only two holders.
