Tony Volpon, ex-Brazil central bank official, to introduce real-pegged stablecoin

Tony Volpon, a former director at the Central Bank of Brazil, unveiled BRD, a yield-sharing stablecoin tied 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 Treasury bonds, linking its value to sovereign debt and aiming to give holders exposure to local interest rates. The central bank’s benchmark interest rate is 15%, compared with 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 these returns is often limited by regulation, currency friction and domestic infrastructure.

“The ability to remunerate stablecoin holders with the interest rates offered by Brazil will obviously be a major 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 commands an $185 million market capitalization. Other competitors include BBRL, with a $51 million market cap, as well as smaller tokens BRL1, which is backed by a group that includes Brazilian exchanges Mercado Bitcoin and Bitso, and the Celo blockchain-native cREAL.

BRD is looking to distinguish itself as the first real-pegged token to explicitly structure the token to share the yield from the government debt backing with holders.

It is not, however, alone. Brazilian startup Crown raised $13.5 million in a series A round led by Paradigm in December for a similar yield-bearing token, BRLV. That token, according to a website dedicated to it, has around $19 million worth of reals in circulation. The listed contract addresses show it has just two holders.