Could Stablecoins Change How Farmers Get Paid?
Agriculture has adopted incredible technology in the field, but when it comes to moving money, plenty of transactions still end with a paper check.
Cody Holmes believes there’s room for that to change.
Cody grew up on a fifth-generation Idaho potato operation that also raises grain. At the same time, he built his own career as an entrepreneur and heavy-equipment dealer, giving him firsthand experience with the challenges businesses face when sending and receiving money both domestically and internationally.
After spending more than a decade around cryptocurrency, Cody began looking at how blockchain technology could be used for something much more practical than buying and selling digital assets.
The result is Spud Pay, a business payment platform built around Spud USD, a stablecoin designed to maintain a one-to-one relationship with the U.S. dollar.
Stablecoin vs. Bitcoin: What’s the Difference?
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding Spud Pay is that using a stablecoin is the same thing as investing in Bitcoin, meme coins or other cryptocurrencies.
Cody says there is an important distinction.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can fluctuate significantly in value and are often purchased as investments. Stablecoins are designed differently. Rather than attempting to increase in value, they are generally intended to maintain a stable value tied to another asset—in this case, the U.S. dollar.
For Spud Pay, the goal isn't to convince farmers to speculate on cryptocurrency.
The goal is to use blockchain technology to move dollars differently.
Cody shares an example from his own business. He needed to send $8,000 to a technician in Colombia who also had a Spud Pay account. According to Cody, the stablecoin-to-stablecoin transaction arrived in 14 seconds with no transfer fee.
That experience illustrates the problem Cody wants Spud Pay to solve: making payments faster and easier without requiring the business owner to understand everything happening behind the technology.
Making Blockchain Feel Like Business Banking
If terms like stablecoin and blockchain make the system sound complicated, Cody says the experience for the business owner is intended to feel much more familiar.
Businesses using Spud Pay can hold a Spud USD balance, use a Visa card, accept credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, send payments to vendors, and connect transactions with accounting software such as QuickBooks.
Recipients don't necessarily need their own Spud Pay account, either.
Cody explains that businesses can send someone a payment link, allowing the recipient to move the money into a traditional bank account through ACH.
Behind the scenes, Spud Pay uses the Solana blockchain, which creates a permanent ledger of transactions. But Cody's goal is to keep much of that complexity away from the farmer or business owner actually making the payment.
The technology may be different.
The experience shouldn't have to be.
What Could This Look Like on the Farm?
Agriculture presents some interesting potential use cases because farms routinely move large amounts of money between relatively small groups of trusted businesses.
A farmer might need to pay a trucking company, fertilizer supplier, seed dealer or equipment business. On the other side of the transaction, that same farmer may receive significant payments when grain or livestock is sold.
Cody believes stablecoin-based payments could eventually provide another option for moving that money.
He also discusses the possibility of farmers holding crop-sale proceeds in a stablecoin balance until large seasonal expenses come due. According to Cody, those balances may have opportunities to generate yield rather than remaining idle in a traditional business checking account.
As with any financial product, however, farmers should understand how funds are held, where yield comes from, what risks are involved, what protections apply and what tax or accounting implications may exist before changing how operating funds are managed.
Why Start With Agriculture?
Cody could have taken Spud Pay into any number of industries.
He chose agriculture intentionally.
Despite enormous advances in equipment, precision technology and automation, agriculture still relies heavily on checks and traditional payment systems.
Cody believes farmers should have access to the same financial technology being adopted elsewhere.
The episode also explores Spud Pay's revenue model, opportunities to white-label the technology for larger companies, potential future lending integrations and what Cody believes needs to happen before stablecoins become a normal part of business transactions.
Whether stablecoins ultimately become common on the farm remains to be seen. But Cody's bigger argument raises an interesting question:
If agriculture is willing to rethink how we plant, spray, harvest and manage data, is it also time to rethink how we move money?
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