A wallet doesn’t feel like a wallet until there’s a dollar sign in it. The surge of stablecoins and their integration into traditional fintech platforms has made dollar-denominated balances the norm. For Para, a company building the most comprehensive wallet and auth suite, this became clear as they looked to onboard new users. Para needed to turn those abstract token numbers into something users could instantly recognize: dollar signs. That’s where Zerion API came in.
What is Para?
Para builds non-custodial embedded wallets that combine seamless UX with true user ownership. Powered by secure Distributed MPC (multi-party computation) and passkeys, Para wallets eliminate seed phrases while ensuring users maintain full cryptographic control of their assets.
Unlike custodial or semi-custodial providers, Para is non-custodial and never holds private keys and never creates platform lock-in. Wallets are portable, exportable, and interoperable — users can recover them independently, use their wallets across chains, and connect their wallets across apps to services like Uniswap or Snapshot.
For developers, Para makes it easy to embed a wallet directly into any app, giving mainstream users a familiar login without sacrificing self-custody. This lets blockchain ecosystems onboard new users quickly, with wallets that are recoverable, secure, and future-proof. Para currently supports hundreds of teams, including ENS and ecosystems like Vana and Camp Network.
But one piece was still missing. A product designed for users at every stage of their crypto journey must communicate through universally understood symbols.
The Challenge: No Balances, No Familiarity
For Para, the goal was clear: onboard web2 users into ecosystems through embedded wallets.
But users wanted a deeper insight into their wallets with an aggregated balance displayed in dollars.
Showing raw ETH or SOL balances wasn’t enough. To mainstream users, widgets that only displayed a token amount didn’t look or feel like wallets. Para’s account widget risked being confusing to the very audience it was meant to serve.
What Para needed was a way to:
- Combine balances across multiple tokens and chains.
- Convert those balances into a single, familiar dollar amount.
- Deliver this in a simple, instantly recognizable widget.
That missing dollar sign was the key to making embedded wallets feel intuitive, familiar, and trustworthy for new users.
The Solution: Token Balances from Zerion API
To bridge the gap, Para turned to Zerion API.
Unlike regular blockchain indexers, Zerion API doesn’t just surface raw token data. Zerion interprets balances, normalizes them across chains, and enriches them with metadata and pricing information. This turns onchain data into something immediately usable in apps.
By integrating EVM and Solana token positions endpoints, Para could finally display the familiar financial meaning of users’ wallets.
Instead of showing ETH, SOL, or other network tokens, Para’s wallets now pull data from Zerion API to:
- Aggregate balances across tokens and chains
- Convert everything into a single USD value
- Provide a familiar wallet view inside any app
The timing was critical. With Zerion API adding Solana support, Para didn’t need to juggle multiple API providers for different ecosystems. One integration covered both EVM chains and Solana, allowing their team to focus on user experience rather than blockchain plumbing.
The result was a smooth developer experience, too. The integration was straightforward.
“With Zerion API, we were able to deliver the wallet experience we wanted. Clear, familiar dollar balances that make sense to new users. And from a team perspective, I haven’t heard a single complaint from our developers during integration, which is the best validation to ask for.” — Jonny Howle, Design Lead at Para
Para could now give new users a wallet that felt like a wallet, thanks to a simple dollar sign powered by Zerion API.
The Impact for Para
With Zerion API powering balances, Para launched the account widget the team envisioned: a simple, embedded wallet view that shows users their total holdings in dollars.
This upgrade delivered two major outcomes:
- Familiar UX for new users: Instead of abstract token amounts, users now see a clear dollar balance, making Para wallets feel instantly recognizable.
- Cross-chain coverage from day one: EVM and Solana balances flow into a single widget without extra integrations, allowing Para to serve diverse ecosystems with minimal overhead.
For Para’s design team, the result is a wallet experience that looks and feels complete. For developers, the smooth integration meant no headaches or slowdowns, a seamless path from concept to production.
Start Building Today
Para’s journey shows how a small but crucial detail, dollar amounts, can transform user experience.
With Zerion API, they delivered an embedded wallet that feels intuitive to new users, without burdening their developers with complex integrations or multiple providers.
If you’re building apps, wallets, or fintech products that need onchain data, you don’t have to start from scratch. Zerion API gives you everything from aggregate balances to full DeFi positions across 26+ chains. It’s the same data infrastructure that powers Zerion Wallet.
Get free dev keys for Zerion API today and start building wallet experiences your users will instantly recognize.