Bridge (the stablecoin platform bought by Stripe for $1.1B) partnered with AgriDex, a Solana marketplace for real-world assets.
The two companies are confident they can revolutionize and reshape the agricultural commodities market, significantly cutting costs and payment processing times.
Stripe’s interest in crypto is an increasingly common pattern in traditional finance (TradFi) as companies begin recognizing the latent potential in crypto and stablecoins.
Last week, we covered Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of Bridge, one of the most popular stablecoin platforms.
This remains the biggest crypto acquisition in history.
But now, Bridge is partnering with AgriDex, a Solana-based real-world assets marketplace for the agricultural trade industry. This will bring agricultural trade on-chain and potentially create one of the most cost-effective on-and-off ramp solutions for agricultural businesses.
This partnership could significantly benefit Stripe’s business model and presence in the crypto community.
We received early access to AgriDex’s press release, so we’ll give you all the most important details below.
Why Is This Partnership Important?
To put things into perspective, the current transaction costs for UK farmers are around 3%, with a three-day processing time.
A University of Portsmouth study found that UK farmers often keep less than 1% of the profit from selling their goods. Most of the money goes to intermediaries and retailers.
If we’re to give our farmers the chance to change how we produce food, they need to keep more of the value so they can invest and try new approaches. We should not let intermediaries and food buyers hold all the bargaining chips. Vicki Hird, Head of Farming at Sustain
AgriDex can reduce transaction costs to 0.3% and processing times to 3.5 seconds. That’s a ten-time decrease in costs and a massive reduction in waiting time.
The near-instant settlements and drastically lower fees could revolutionize the agricultural supply chain and improve fairness, efficiency, and transparency for farmers and consumers.
AgriDex’s CEO (Henry Duckworth) expands on the advantages of partnering with Bridge, emphasizing several tangible benefits of on-chain agricultural trade.
Our partnership with Bridge is pivotal in addressing key industry challenges like high transaction costs and delayed settlements. By leveraging Bridge’s stablecoin infrastructure, we’re creating a new standard for transparency and accessibility in global markets, driving down costs and speeding up transactions. Henry Duckworth, Co-Founder and CEO of Agridex
Integrating blockchain technology and stablecoin infrastructure could be the next step in bringing agricultural economies up to global standards (and rewarding farmers at the same time).
How Is This Benefiting Stripe, and What’s the Endgame?
With Stripe now owning Bridge, the Bridge–AgriDex partnership directly benefits it.
Traditional finance is constantly looking to invest in crypto. We’ve seen this with Visa’s Tokenized Asset Platform and now with Stripe’s $1B acquisition.
And with the stablecoin market worth $178B, plus an 84.56% increase in the 24-hour trading volume ($93B), it’s not hard to justify this surge in institutional crypto interest.
Tether ($USDT) alone dominates 68% of the total market cap of stablecoins, accounting for 84% of the total 24-hour trading volume.
It’s clear that stablecoins are here to stay and potentially revolutionize modern finances. Stripe and many other TradFi companies are recognizing that fact and leaping at the opportunity to invest.
References
Farmers left with less than 1p of food profits for their produce, reveals new report (University of Portsmouth)
Top Stablecoin Tokens by Market Capitalization (CoinMarketCap)
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