USDC as the supply chain glue
Payments and invoices along the supply-chain are high friction.
Especially when there's global freight involved, where payments are also dependent upon landing requirements, and maybe there are even penalties for delays or fluctuations when based on commodities, either at the production side or maybe even gasoline and diesel.
These payments need to have fast settlement, clear legibility to multiple parties, and programmability.
I suspect that a large amount of money flows through these global supply chains, and most of the focus to date has been on the actual shipments and manufacturing to reduce inventory holdings and shorten overall logistics costs and time.
But the payment methods are probably also out dated, and could move at a faster pace to reduce errors and provide more transparency.
Speed of payment primarily reduces the holding costs, which is waste that gets eaten by someone.
It's not productive.
Meaning the extra costs of waiting for cash flow doesn't actually benefit anyway. It's entropy from friction.
What the dollar amount is, I don't know, but if the average payment term throughout the chain is "Net 30" and the cost is not the risk-free cost of capital, but the loss of business due to failure to fund operations or inventory, it's just a higher price.
How many situations are there in the supply chain where the routes or intermediate middle men are effectively local monopolies because the payment agreement and implicit trust is just there?
There could be a meaningful unlock in efficiency and lower prices if the friction tax were removed.