When Trace Finance closed its $32 million Series A on June 17, the São Paulo startup joined a suddenly crowded rush into what might charitably be called the plumbing business of crypto—infrastructure that connects traditional banking to stablecoin settlement networks. Not exactly the sexiest pitch. But in Brazil, where the central bank's Pix instant payment system moves money for half the population and regulators have started drawing clearer lines around digital assets, Trace's founders believe the timing couldn't be sharper.
CoinFund led the round, pulling in Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Valor Capital, Paxos, and HOF Capital. Chainlink Labs and SNZ Capital came in as strategic backers. A roster of angels followed—Circle co-founder Sean Neville, Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko, Mesh CEO Bam Azizi, and Ricardo Villela Marino, a partner at Itaú Unibanco, Brazil's largest private bank. According to CryptoBriefing, the valuation represented roughly a tenfold increase from the seed round, though the company declined to share specific figures.
The capital influx, perhaps more than the founders expected when they started building in 2020, reflects both the maturing stablecoin market and Brazil's odd position as a regulatory early mover in Latin America.
Pix, Stablecoins, and the Cross-Border Friction Point
Trace doesn't issue tokens or run a consumer wallet. Instead, CEO Bernardo Brites and his co-founders—CTO Leone Parise and COO Rafael Luz—built an API layer that sits between multi-currency accounts (Brazilian reais, U.S. dollars, euros) and the stablecoin rails that increasingly underpin cross-border payments. The core product: convert BRL to USDC in under a minute, then push payouts across more than 15 countries using local systems like PIX, Mexico's SPEI, U.S. ACH, and Europe's SEPA.
The company claims to have processed over $10 billion in cross-border volume, though it hasn't clarified the time window for that tally. What's clearer is the client list. Trace says it powers settlements for the four largest global payment operators active in Latin America—including dLocal, a relationship confirmed by Circle's public partner directory. Bitso and OKX also appear as partners in that listing.
It's infrastructure work, the kind that sits invisible until it breaks. But the model hinges on a specific regulatory quirk.
Brazil's Compliance Window
In February, Brazil's central bank put teeth into Resolution No. 521, a rule that brought certain virtual asset service providers under the country's foreign exchange regime. The move didn't ban stablecoins—it formalized them, pulling crypto flows inside the same banking perimeter that governs wire transfers and FX trades.
For compliant players like Trace, that shift amounts to a tailwind. Less regulated competitors face a steeper climb to work with banks, and traditional institutions—already cautious—now have clearer criteria for choosing partners. It's not a monopoly by any stretch, but the regulatory moat widens.
The timing coincides with broader stablecoin momentum. Total market capitalization held around $315 billion through mid-2026, according to DeFiLlama. A partnership Trace announced with BCB Group in July 2025 offers a hint at the underlying trend: stablecoins accounted for just 7 percent of Trace's settlements in September 2024, but that share had climbed to 40 percent by June 2025, per the company's figures. Whether that pace holds is anyone's guess, but the trajectory caught investors' attention.
A Crowded Field, a Narrow Edge
Trace will deploy the Series A capital toward expanding transaction capacity, deepening foreign exchange and banking integrations, and extending its regulated presence into the U.S., additional Latin American markets, and parts of Asia-Pacific. The company previously raised $4.3 million in a February 2022 seed led by HOF Capital, with Circle Ventures, Mantis VC, and 2TM participating.
But Trace isn't building in isolation. Conduit pulled in $36 million last May to scale similar payment rails. Stripe, betting bigger, acquired stablecoin infrastructure startup Bridge for roughly $1.1 billion earlier in the year. Circle itself launched the Circle Payments Network mainnet in May, aiming to link financial institutions for real-time stablecoin settlement. The space is getting noisy.
Trace's edge, if it holds, likely comes down to two things: deep integration with Brazil's Pix network—a system that already handles hundreds of billions in monthly volume—and the regulatory compliance that lets it work directly with major banks. Pix isn't just fast; it's ubiquitous. Pairing that with stablecoin rails creates a bridge that's hard to replicate overnight, even for better-funded competitors.
Still, infrastructure bets are unforgiving. The margins are thin, the switching costs less sticky than founders like to believe. And as every fintech operator who lived through Brazil's last regulatory tightening can attest, what the central bank gives, it can also recalibrate. For now, though, Trace is placing its chips on the idea that the market for regulated stablecoin plumbing—especially in a country where banking penetration remains uneven and remittances run deep—is only starting to take shape.
