Running Due Diligence on Using Blockchain in a Card Product: A Step-by-Step
A step-by-step due diligence for using blockchain in a card product, and where an on-chain reais balance like BRLV fits the balance layer.
Before putting blockchain into a card product, a team evaluates where it actually changes the stack: the balance layer. A card still needs an issuer-processor, a scheme sponsor, and identity checks; blockchain enters when the reais balance behind the card sits on-chain. Crown issues BRLV, which can serve as that balance.
Step 1: Separate the layers
Map the card stack into its parts: issuing and processing, scheme sponsorship, identity and fraud checks, and the balance and settlement layer. Blockchain is a decision about the last one. Keeping the layers separate prevents evaluating a balance choice as if it were a card-scheme choice.
Step 2: Assess the balance layer
Ask what the on-chain reais balance is and what backs it. BRLV holds a 1:1 peg to the real, is fully backed by Brazilian federal government bonds, and keeps the principal available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What real-time, outside-banking-hours settlement changes for a corporate balance is set out in real-time BRL settlement for ERPs.
Step 3: Check settlement and availability
Confirm the settlement timing and whether movement depends on the banking window. An on-chain reais balance settles in the asset’s own environment and moves outside banking hours, which is the point of using it in a card at all.
Step 4: Verify custody, reporting, and integration
Due diligence on the balance layer comes down to custody, reporting, and integration. BRLV custody runs on Fireblocks institutional infrastructure with multi-party computation and segregated per-client wallets; Crown performs the mandatory reporting to the Central Bank of Brazil for operations on the platform; and integration is through an API with sub-accounts, Pix deposits, conversion orders, and webhooks, detailed in integrating a BRL stablecoin by API and documented at docs.crown-brlv.com.
Step 5: Place it against the on-chain real evaluation
A card balance is one use of an on-chain real; the same evaluation a bank runs before adopting an on-chain settlement layer applies here, as covered in what a bank should evaluate before adopting an on-chain real settlement layer. The documented networks and contract addresses are in the whitepaper at docs.crown-brlv.com.