Paradigm’s First Investment in Brazil! Leads $13.5 Million Funding Round for Stablecoin Rising Star Crown

Top crypto VC Paradigm announces entry into the Brazilian market, leading a $13.5 million Series A funding round for local stablecoin startup Crown, with a post-money valuation reaching $90 million. Crown issues the BRLV stablecoin pegged to the Brazilian real, which has already surpassed 360 million reals in subscriptions, claiming to be the world’s largest emerging market stablecoin. This investment not only marks Paradigm’s first bet on Latin America’s largest economy, but also reveals that in Brazil’s high-interest and tightly regulated market, an “interest-bearing stablecoin” model tailored for institutions is gaining recognition from top-tier capital.

Paradigm’s First Move in Brazil: Why Crown?

On the global crypto VC map, Brazil is quickly becoming an unmissable spot. On May 20, Paradigm, known for early investments in giants like Coinbase and Uniswap, announced its first investment in the country—a $13.5 million injection into stablecoin issuer Crown. This Series A round pushed Crown’s valuation to $90 million, highlighting strong investor confidence in Brazil’s crypto market potential.

Paradigm’s investment partner, Ricardo de Arruda, who is Brazilian himself, cited two key factors behind the move: the team and early growth momentum. Crown’s co-founder Vinicius Correa comes from fintech star Nubank, while co-founder John Delaney is a New York lawyer with years of deep experience in the Brazilian market and a solid understanding of local financial and crypto arbitrage. More importantly, Crown’s BRLV stablecoin has built significant liquidity advantages in just a year and a half since launch. De Arruda compared this “liquidity network effect” to the success foundations of Tether and Circle, believing that Crown has seized a critical window to become the leading real-pegged stablecoin.

For the broader industry, Paradigm’s move is a strong signal. It means that emerging markets with mature financial systems and unique macroeconomic environments—like Brazil—are systematically entering the radar of top global capital. Localized solutions, especially those that can integrate with high local interest rates and other domestic financial features, are now capturing global attention.

Blue Ocean in a High-Interest Market: Why Brazil Is a Stablecoin Battleground

To understand Crown’s value, you must first understand Brazil’s unique financial market. Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest crypto market, and its population’s crypto ownership rate even surpasses that of stocks. But the key feature is its macroeconomy: Brazil’s central bank benchmark rate stands at around 15%, one of the highest among major economies.

This high-interest environment completely changes the stablecoin game. In the USD stablecoin space, users typically accept zero yield, as the U.S. dollar’s interest environment is different. But in Brazil, any real-pegged stablecoin that can’t offer yield to users will struggle to gain mass adoption, especially with interest-rate-sensitive institutional funds. This is precisely the core problem Crown set out to solve from the beginning. Its BRLV stablecoin is fully backed by Brazilian government bonds as reserves, enabling the yield from those bonds to be “passed through” to holders, creating a native “interest-bearing stablecoin” experience.

So, the stablecoin race in Brazil is essentially a contest around “compliant yield generation.” Crown is currently focused on institutional clients, who view holding BRLV as an efficient “arbitrage tool” to gain exposure to Brazil’s high interest rates. This strong real-world demand is the fundamental driver behind BRLV’s rapid accumulation of over 360 million reals in subscriptions in a short time. This also means that whoever can best solve the yield, security, and compliance challenges is likely to dominate this trillion-real potential market.

Crown’s Dual Solution: Cracking Yield and Security

Crown co-founder John Delaney clearly states that to successfully issue a stablecoin in Brazil, two major challenges must be overcome simultaneously: generating yield in a high-interest environment and meeting institutional clients’ rigorous security requirements. Crown’s entire business architecture is built around these two points.

First, on the yield side, unlike many stablecoin issuers who use only cash or commercial paper as reserves, Crown uses exclusively Brazilian government bonds. This design essentially makes BRLV a tokenized short-term government bond fund. Holding BRLV is equivalent to indirectly holding interest-bearing Brazilian government bonds, naturally granting institutional holders access to the country’s high benchmark rates. This model provides an extremely smooth entry point for institutional funds into crypto.

Second, on the security and compliance side, Crown emphasizes that its reserves are held in a specially designed legal structure to isolate risk, ensuring that even if the issuer has problems, holders’ assets are protected. The company also strictly complies with Brazil’s anti-money laundering and financial reporting regulations. This commitment to “institutional-grade security” is key to gaining the trust of top investors like Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and Framework Ventures, which led Crown’s previous $8.1 million seed round.

Key Data on Crown and BRLV Stablecoin

• Latest Valuation: $90 million (post-Series A)
• Series A Funding: $13.5 million (led by Paradigm)
• Total BRLV Subscriptions: Over 360 million reals (approx. $66 million)
• Market Positioning: Claims to be the world’s largest emerging market stablecoin
• Reserve Assets: 100% Brazilian government bonds
• Target Customers: Currently focused on financial institutions, fintech platforms, and enterprises
• Core Advantage: Provides native on-chain exposure to Brazil’s high interest rates (currently around 15%)

Trillion-Dollar Ambition: How Crown Aims to Redefine Brazilian Finance

Crown’s vision goes far beyond just issuing a successful stablecoin. Delaney has set an ambitious “North Star goal” for the company: to reach 1 trillion reals in BRLV circulation within 10 years. He predicts this would account for a high single-digit percentage of Brazil’s money supply. If achieved, it would mean BRLV is deeply embedded in Brazil’s national economic system.

The path to this goal is dual-tracked. In the short term, the company will continue to focus on expanding institutional demand, using this funding round to accelerate onboarding, strengthen compliance, and deepen liquidity. In the long run, the retail market presents an even bigger growth story. Although Delaney sees retail adoption as a “long-tail phenomenon,” as Brazilian consumers become increasingly open to digital assets, a safe, interest-bearing, and easy-to-use local currency stablecoin could likely serve as a bridge between traditional bank accounts and the crypto world, exploding in use cases like payments, savings, and cross-border remittances.

Paradigm’s investment can be seen as a major endorsement of Crown’s chosen track and team execution. It signals that the Latin American crypto ecosystem is evolving from simple trading and speculation toward more sophisticated financial infrastructure and product innovation. As the USD stablecoin landscape becomes increasingly mature, the race for local-currency stablecoins in emerging markets may be the next vast battleground full of volatility and opportunity.