Joining me down here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange is Todd Ziegler.
He is the CEO of TCS Blockchain, old pals of ours here on FinTech TV and at the big board, and it's nice to welcome him back down here onto the trading floor as we've done before.
It's nice to see you again.
Great, great to be back, JD.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, last year TCS announced the TCS token.
Yes, you were listening on the INX exchange.
On the INX exchange.
Talk to me about the latest and how that has developed since that big announcement.
It's, it's gone incredibly well.
Uh, we have settled transactions totaling nearly 30 million TCS tokens with American and Canadian trucking companies in less than a year.
Uh, INX was acquired by Republic in October, so they're scaling up and trying to grab market share, and it's, uh, it's been a really nice, uh, development.
For anyone who's a bit unfamiliar, now you and I have this background on this topic, and it is a fascinating one.
Lay out the pain points specifically for the trucking industry for a lot.
Of these truck drivers out there, it was always about the pain points on settlement, how long it actually took them under the old existing model to really get paid for the work that they were doing, and that's a really important job that I feel like you set out to try and solve.
Absolutely, yes.
So in the transportation industry, it's a $3 trillion industry.
Uh, everybody waits 30 to 180 days to get paid, right?
That's, that's industry standard.
Um, most of the trucking companies are small businesses.
Um, 97% of the trucking companies in the US are 3 to 5 trucks.
They can't wait 10 days to get paid.
They certainly can't wait 30 to 180 days to get paid.
So we get them paid same day or next day on blockchain rails in lieu of banking rails, and we're typically doing it 90% cheaper than what they would experience dealing with an incumbent factoring company.
Yeah, because unlike so many other industries that that we're all familiar with, it's not top-heavy.
It's not heavily concentrated, to your point, the vast majority of these massive trucks you'll see on the road.
Throughout North America, they're really part of a much smaller fleet.
So what has been the feedback over the last several months?
Well, um, I, I could talk about that until I'm blue in the face, but what I'll share with you is, um, in addition to being faster and cheaper than everybody else out there, we also offer, uh, carriers a non-exclusive agreement.
So literally, if they don't like the solution, they don't like the value proposition, they can walk away.
Not a single carrier that's onboarded onto the TCS platform has left us.
Yeah, a new exciting partnership with PayPal as well as Paxos.
Talk to us all about it and how does a relationship like that come together, Todd?
Yeah, that's the news of the day.
Um, the, the relationship with PayPal, we're now gonna be utilizing, uh, the PYU USD stable token as part of the settlement stack.
Uh, Paxos, uh, is effectively the issuer and manager of PYU USD.
Uh, so they have, uh, you know, what we, we heard for years like, where are the solutions for legacy industries as it relates to blockchain and digital assets.
So we're now seeing large institutional and legacy companies like PayPal saying, hey, this is a tremendous opportunity for volume.
It's a tremendous opportunity for TVL and, you know, here we're creating this amazing solution for supply chains.
Uh, so we're, we're, we couldn't be more excited to have both of those companies involved.
Todd, when you initiate these. with a legacy brand like PayPal that is a household name.
Does it take a lot of convincing in terms of trying to maybe consider doing things a little bit of it in a, in a, in a new and inventive way, or are you willing to find pretty willing partners across the industry saying, yeah, we're, we're willing to embrace change?
A lot of people don't realize that, you know, they, they just don't understand the scale and scope of the industry, um, but, you know, companies like PayPal that issue a stable token.
Uh, they're constantly looking for opportunities to drive volume in TVL.
So really, you just start talking about the numbers and people's eyes kind of light up and, uh, that's, that's kind of how it developed.
I wonder what most excites you about the announcement.
What do you most hope this does in terms of transportation companies who settle freight invoices with TCS?
Well, I think PayPal is, is obviously a perfect strategic partner for us because they have brand recognition.
In the transportation industry.
And this is really bigger than PYUSD.
Uh, we're already working on the world's first digital asset fuel card.
So, we're gonna see a world, I believe this year, where, uh, transportation companies can get their invoices settled on chain.
Literally, the truck can drive to a, a fuel station.
It costs $1400 to fill up a truck with diesel, right?
These are huge costs.
So literally, they can put a card in at the truck stop and they're, they're spending digital assets right there at, at the truck stop.
Todd, before I let you go, I, I know you and the team, you're, you're working on a lot of exciting things always.
You're always establishing these new deals and trying to really reframe how we have these conversations over invoice settlement and, and comparable goals.
Uh, can you give us some sense on what else is on the horizon Horizon for you and the firm in in 2026.
What does the year look like for you now that you've got yet another big announcement?
Yeah, well, we've, we've got some, uh, additional conversations happening with some large centralized exchanges based here in the US.
We hope those come to fruition this year, and our team is focused on a billion dollars in annualized flows by the end of the year.
That's, that's our objective.
Todd Ziegler, CEO of TCS Blockchain, come back down here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Come see us anytime.
Great to see you.
Good to see you, JD.
Take care.
All right.
