The Origin Story of Spendcodes by Michael Curry
Team: Michael Curry (CAS ’05)
About the Venture: Spendcodes lets Retail Merchants accept Stablecoins (USDC) and sends them Dollars (USD) to their bank. Customers pay in 2 seconds from their mobile, while Businesses reduce their transaction fee by 2%.
The Inspiration
Main Street merchants and motivating mentors were the inspiration for our Stablecoin Point of Sale, Spendcodes. Since starting at NYU, I’ve had the good fortune of finding the right people at exactly the right time in a technology’s adoption.
I graduated high school with awards in art and technology and entered my state university unclear on my direction. Within two years, I realized no established major met my interests, so I designed my own curriculum based on the college’s capabilities. I thought I hit a wall when the board expressed an unwillingness to adopt a “digital advertising” curriculum but, that summer, I scrambled to attend an open house at New York University to pursue the program in a city known for innovation, media, and advertising.
Right away, I transferred to NYU and quickly found career opportunities by joining the first A/B and multivariate testing service for digital advertisers. During that time, I learned to code and was guided by mentors into a software service career, eventually leading to three acquisitions across AdTech (Offermatica: Omniture/Adobe), Travel SaaS (TripIt: Concur), and Service Marketplace (Redbeacon: The Home Depot).
From these teams, I learned from founders firsthand how to utilize new technologies in building real-world services. Today, I bring this insight into digital assets’ enormous potential for financial technology. Through BitMEX and Polkadot, I worked with the most recognized digital asset innovators of the perpetual swap and smart contracts. The only common thread was the consistent growth of stablecoins, proving the tech in rapid, high volume trading cases which inspired the recent global business payment boom and my mission to continue that success for merchants in retail.
The transaction fee problemÂ
Merchants are at a breaking point with card fees. In a November 2024 U.S. Senate Judiciary Hearing on Visa and Mastercard’s high fees, merchants pointed out that card fees often represent their highest operating expense after labor, yet they have no room to negotiate fees or terms since cards represent over 80% of Point of Sale transactions today. Given that, nationwide merchant associations are quite literally calling out for a competitive alternative that fits the inherent benefits of stablecoins.
Because of federal regulatory and institutional policy progress on stablecoins in 2025, stablecoins now represent a much larger opportunity and responsibility than just a token used in “crypto.” They are now a newly regulated and endorsed medium of money for everyone, everywhere. The U.S. Department of the Treasury projects the Stablecoin Market Cap will grow 10x (over $2 Trillion) by 2028. This ushers in a new era of Fintech for customers and merchants who are always looking for exciting advances and advantages in how they use “dollars” every day.
In this evolution, most will not recognize when they use stablecoins for the first time as dollars—nor should they. For two decades, most have knowingly utilized mobile devices to conduct their personal, financial, and business lives. Not only will this continue, but in the next two years, PYMNTS.com reports that 71% of merchants are migrating to mobile devices for their point of sale operations. This inevitable mobile-to-mobile transaction landscape enables fast-as-a-download distribution for the most secure, performant, and affordable payment software that mobile apps can leverage for their users.
The payment software for the Dollar across Mobile apps is stablecoins.Â
The adoption of stablecoins on mobile is still early, but the secret is out. Not only are there over 100M mobile stablecoin users represented in just the top two mobile wallet apps (Coinbase and MetaMask), plus Cash App with its recent announcement to let users spend stablecoins, but this momentum has opened invitations to speak on stablecoins in retail at some of the best events around the world. These include the NACS Show in Chicago, Digital Frontier Summit at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and the Merchant Payments Ecosystem in Berlin.
It’s not crypto to accept Stablecoins. Spendcodes helps retail merchants and businesses accept stablecoins across all locations and points of sale. Customers spend stablecoins (USDC) by NFC or QR Code from their preferred app with Merchants who get paid in stablecoins or dollars (USD) in their bank. Customers pay in 2 seconds, while businesses reduce their transaction fee by 2% (over 60% savings).
Thank you to @nyuinnovation for featuring our story. Follow us on our mission for Merchants.
