By Marcelo Teixeira

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Crypto powerhouse Tether, the world’s largest digital assets company, is leveraging its recent acquisition of a South American agricultural firm to make a strategic play for the multi-trillion dollar a year global commodities trade.

The company aims to embed its stablecoin, a digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar that trades in crypto exchanges, into the core of markets where raw materials are bought and sold, promising to slash cross-border payment costs and times from days to seconds.

New York-listed Adecoagro, a company that produces dairy in Argentina, rice in Uruguay and sugar and ethanol in Brazil, among other products, agreed in April to sell 70% of its shares to Tether in a deal valued at around $600 million.

It is another sign that the quickly-expanding crypto industry is moving into brick-and-mortar businesses, and broadening investments in physical assets.

“The crypto industry is increasingly focused on bridging digital finance with tangible assets,” said Joe Sticco, chief executive of Cryptex Finance, a company that created indexes that mirror cryptocurrencies’ market caps.

He said that by adding income-generating assets like farmland or food processing plants, Tether could strengthen its balance sheet and provide a hedge against inflation.

Tether’s main business segment is USDT, a digital currency backed mostly by U.S. Treasuries. Launched in 2014, USDT has grown sharply in trading volumes amid rising interest in cryptocurrency and token prices.

It is a way to make payments outside of the traditional global financial system. The big difference between USDT and bitcoin or another cryptocurrency like ethereum is that USDT is designed to track the U.S. dollar, the currency dominating global trade.

COMMODITIES TRADING

Tether has issued $143 billion in USDT so far, and it said in its first quarter report that it has $149 billion in reserves, including $120 billion in U.S. Treasuries.

“Tether wants to boost the use of its stablecoin to make cross-border payments, something that I think will grow a lot in financial markets, particularly in commodities markets,” said Marcos Viriato, the chief executive of Parfin, a South American company providing technology for transactions with cryptocurrencies.

“If a company in Brazil sells commodities to someone in Bolivia, the payment through conventional channels could take more than three days. With USDT it would take seconds,” he said, adding that operation costs would also be much lower.