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Zebec x Asure x Turnkey: Driving Mass Adoption of Stablecoin Payments
Recorded: Sept. 17, 2025 Duration: 0:25:27Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, industry leaders from Zebek, Assure, and Turnkey explored the transformative potential of stablecoin payroll solutions, highlighting a significant trend towards digital currency integration in payroll systems. With the recent passage of the Genius Act, the landscape is ripe for innovation, as companies aim to capture a share of the $11 trillion U.S. payroll market.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon everybody! Hi Simon!
Hey Ben! Hey, good to speak with you. I'm well thank you. I'm gonna keep that music only for a little while there while we move into things because we've got a tight schedule today and a great, great guest to join us.
How are you, Simon? First of all, how are things?
Good. It's been a busy week. I know it's a big day today in the market, so I would love to get the spaces up before everyone starts listening to the FOMC meeting.
Yes, it is coming very, very soon. So we've got 25 minutes. Why don't we talk a little bit about
today's show then? Obviously, we're really focusing on the future of payroll and why
big players are now really starting to pay attention to stablecoin solutions. I wondered if you wanted to kind of
help frame a bit of context around Zebek innovating payroll via stablecoins and maybe
introduce our guests for the day. Absolutely. Well, we're joined by two great guests today,
two partners of Zebek that we're very proud to be working with. We have Jay Whitehead from
Assure, which is one of the largest payroll companies in the US.
Jay, do we have you on?
We're working on that right now.
So give us a second and if you keep going, we'll make sure we've got Jay on.
Of course.
And then we're joined by Bryce, who's the founder of Turnkey, which is a very exciting
wallet infrastructure provider that Zabek is also
going to be working with on our payroll initiative. Hey, everyone. Great to be here.
Loud and clear from West Orange, New Jersey. Hey, there he is. Hey, Jay, how you doing?
Life is good. Happy Wednesday to all. Fantastic. And hello, Bryce. Good to meet you also. How's it going?
Going great here as well. I'm calling in from New York.
Wonderful. Okay. So look, Simon, maybe just a little bit more then about Assure as a guest,
and then obviously a little bit about Turnkey also. I think it's really important to kind of frame the outline, and then I can jump in with some questions because I'm really eager to speak with all of you. Definitely. So thank you for everyone for
joining today. We're excited to have Assure and Turnkey as our guests on the show. Assure, of
course, is one of the largest payroll companies in the US. They've been a partner of us now for
a few years. They're a NASDAQ listed company. They serve over 4 million employees in the US. They process over
10 billion in volume through their payroll suite. And they have a particular excellence with the
small and medium enterprises in the US. So really excited to be getting into the details today
with Jay here. So I'll turn it over to you, Ben, to get into the questions.
Before we do get into that, I understand that you recently, and by you, I mean Zebek, recently were recognized at Assure's
annual payroll event, right? Absolutely. So we were actually down in Austin, Texas for the annual
Assure Evolve conference where Neil from our team received the gold medallion in technology
innovation. So we're very proud to
have accepted that. And really, it's just kind of the beginning of what we're going to be building
together with Assure. Absolutely love that. And also really important to mention Bryce from
Turnkey. Obviously, we're talking about this upgrade and we're talking about adding stable
coin solutions to payroll, etc.
And Turnkey is obviously building incredible wallet infrastructure and a layer of support to this work.
And so it's really important to highlight Bryce. And Bryce, we've got a few questions for you coming up also.
So I'm going to jump straight into it with everyone. I'm going to I'm going to start going with actually Jay, first of all.
Thanks so much for coming and joining us today, Jay. For those who may not know Assure, do you mind just sharing a little bit about
who you are and the customers you serve and the role you play in the payroll space?
Sure. Assure is probably the premier HR payroll benefits, pay card, tax management solution for serving small business in the United States.
We do lots of restaurants, hospitalities, hourly workforce employers in the country that have a very specific set of needs.
Different than a Walmart or a Macy's or larger employers.
And so we really focus on that.
About $135 million in revenue, been around for actually an entire life cycle, about 25
years, but last nine years, focusing on HCM solutions for small business tax or
stock symbol ASUR on the NASDAQ stock exchange, about a $240 million market cap and, you know,
growing fast with a lot of technology, including AI. And we're really happy that the Genius Act
was signed earlier this year in July so that we can
even move into that space. I love that and you know some of those things you're talking about
that's a huge footprint that you guys have in the space. Why then you know for people who are coming
to this space you know completely green why is payroll such an important part of the economy, especially for the everyday American worker?
Well, it used to be that you could, that payroll was a pay cage, a guy in a cage with cash,
they would hand it out. But that era is long gone. Digital payments are everything now. So
if you don't get paid via a payroll provider that's compliant with with all the tax laws and things like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, otherwise known as OBBBBA, which which makes wages that are part of that are tips or overtime, makes them exempt from taxes. So unless you're paid by a payroll service
and a solution that does that
and keeps your HR in compliance, you're in deep snow.
In fact, most people don't know
that on September 30th of this year,
just in a couple of weeks,
the US government has declared zero check day
where the US government will no longer print
any paper checks for anything. Income tax returns, social security taxes, nothing. government has declared zero check day, where the US government will no longer print any
paper checks for anything.
Income tax returns, Social Security taxes, nothing.
And so you really have to be in the digital era these days.
And the way to get paid compliantly is through a payroll service like Assure.
I love that.
Thank you for being clear on that. And, you know, it really helps,
I think, with the context of everything that's going on in the space right now, particularly,
as you just mentioned a moment ago, the Genius Act for people to understand kind of where you
currently sit and provide that context. There's been a lot of talk post-Genius Act about how payroll can now evolve. From your perspective, why are stablecoin
payroll solutions suddenly now so much more relevant for companies like Assure?
Well, in the last couple of years, many, many more employees of companies paid by services like Assure are being paid digitally through a pay card or an earned wage access card.
Our card is called Assure Pay. or 35, or those who are sending international remittances to folks back in the old country,
wherever the old country is, those folks really have to have digital access and are really
reliant on digital access for those international remittances. Many, many of those young people under 35 are now earning, paying with, playing with,
investing in decentralized finance, Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, etc.
And in fact, there are some companies that are even paying stock option like benefits,
performance benefits in Ether or Bitcoin. And therefore, the stablecoin
has evolved. And the stablecoin is a token that allows you to store value from fiat currencies
like dollars, euros, pesos, and Bitcoin or other decentralized finance in one wallet.
That token is a wallet backed by U.S. dollars, and that's the stablecoin.
And that was put into law on June 15th of this year by the Genius Act.
And so here's a statistic. There are 45 million Americans who own Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, decentralized finance assets right now.
75% of them are under 35 years old.
So that cohort really likes to have their Bitcoin mixed with their dollars, if you will.
their Bitcoin mixed with their dollars, if you will. And then those folks who are sending
international remittances overseas, in fact, $380 billion was sent overseas from paychecks
in 2024 to just five countries by American workers. But those two people, those two types of people,
people who own Bitcoin or Ether or Dogecoin
and people who are sending international remittances
have to pay very large fees
to move those currencies in and out of fiat
and or other currencies.
And what stablecoin will do is it will eliminate the friction, make those payments immediate, and make them almost free.
So Stablecoin is really important for those two cohorts in particular. And as a result,
payroll providers like Assure will really need to consider Stablecoin a must-have for 2026.
Now, there's a big limitation. In order to accept and move Stablecoin, you have to be banking with
or have as a banking partner an FDIC-insured institution that is a signatory
to the Genius Act. And there are very few of those right now. It's only a month and a half old.
But there will be more. And as soon as those sign on, those banks sign on, then providers like
Assure will be able to take advantage of it our banks are not now
signatories yet however they will be pretty soon and we'll be ready we'll be ready to to move money
through stable coins when that happens i love that um and so i guess you know one of the next
bits i want to i want to jump in now with Simon, if that's okay.
And just say like, you know, listening to Jay here, Simon, it's, you know, apparent now how big this is.
And you yourself have been talking about this market as like an $8 trillion opportunity ripe for disruption.
Why then is now the moment in your view to kind of like, you know, cement your place and start working with companies like Assure to accelerate that vision?
Do we have you, Simon?
Oh, goodness.
Okay.
Well, while Simon figures that out, I can jump around and very quickly bring Bryce in,
and then we'll come back to that in a moment. Hey, Bryce, how are you?
Doing great.
Great stuff. Bryce, can you give us the story of Turnkey quickly and how you started and what
problem you guys are solving, where you're at today?
Yeah, so Turnkey is secure, flexible, and scalable wallet infrastructure. So we allow
businesses to really easily integrate crypto wallets and broader wallet infrastructure. So we allow businesses to really easily integrate
crypto wallets and broader crypto functionality behind the scenes. So you can create applications
that really feel effortless. You can abstract crypto away. Me and my co-founder, we previously
were at Coinbase building Coinbase Custody. So a very institutional way for big institutions to buy and
hold crypto. With that, we realized that there were big gaps for the true infrastructure behind
all of that, for something that was much more flexible and would give people the tools that
they needed to build these more integrated experiences with crypto. So we started Turnkey
about three and a half years ago
and have been scaling it since then. And really, some of the biggest apps in crypto are built on
Turnkey. So everyone from Moonshot to Axiom to Bridge to Polymarket to a whole bunch of other
folks have built on top of Turnkey's infrastructure.
I love that. And I'm going to come back to you in a moment, but I think we may have Simon back now.
And I just want to touch on that question about why it's important to work with companies like Assure and infrastructure like Turnkey at this moment.
Oh, Simon, I think we've lost you, dude. I think the best thing you can do, Simon,
is probably just drop
down and then come back up in a moment and hopefully the audio will be fixed and uh it's
okay because bryce i have another question for you um and and i think it really comes into this
you know we're talking to jay here about the importance of looking into these opportunities
but you know we we also have this piece where it's like regular employees,
they're not going to come into the space and set up a MetaMask or a phantom wallets just to get
paid, right? They don't want to have to go through that level of complexity. How is Turnkey working
to remove that and make blockchain payroll safe for the mainstream? Totally agree. Yeah, I think it was always funny to me
seeing my parents try to set up a MetaMask and the 14 steps that they had to go through and how
every single step confused them along the way. Turnkey really flips that on its head. So rather
than having a separate app that's your wallet, you're able to integrate a wallet directly into the application and have that
behind more typical authentication methods like email or SMS or biometrics. And so you can really
have that fade behind the scenes, abstract crypto away, and tailor it to the specific use case.
This makes it so you don't have to think about crypto. You can just think about getting paid.
You're going through experiences that are very similar to what you're used to as somebody who is just collecting their paycheck.
I love that.
And that's exactly what I thought you would say.
I'm really pleased that that's where you're at.
And I think it does make this whole kind of discussion so much more seamless.
Simon, have we got you back?
You're on mute currently, sir.
Simon, there's always something. Does it work? There he is.
Hear me. All right. You. Simon, talk about it, right?
$11 million opportunity you've been talking about here, ripe for disruption.
We've got Assure up on the stage. We've got Turnkey here. Why is it now that ZEBEC is really looking to
accelerate its vision with partners like this? When you think about it, the vast majority of
that $11 trillion in US payroll volume, it's going through the major payroll providers,
the ADPs and the Assures of the world. Yet not a single
one of them have yet integrated a stablecoin payroll option within their HCM software suites
to date. Obviously, it's been difficult to be in the business of crypto payroll before we had clear
regulation in the US, as Jay has mentioned. But now Zabek is really eager to be working with
leaders in the space like Assure and integrating our technology into their payroll flows. Of course, with Paybridge and School Payroll both being part of the Assure
ecosystem, we're very familiar with Assure's tech and their world-class client service,
and we view stablecoin payroll really as a way to further upgrade their offering
and take market share away from some of the legacy players that are slower to adapt.
market share away from some of the legacy players that are slower to adapt.
I love that. And I guess I've got a couple of questions here that I want to kind of layer in
because I think it's important to. So very quickly, Bryce, I'm going to come back to you here before
I then go back to Simon, because Turnkey is like already supporting multiple blockchains, right?
How important is cross-chain compatibility
when it comes to payroll?
And how do you see that expanding
as more chains get added over time?
Yeah, this was something that we thought a lot about
in the early designs of Turnkey.
And we've built our system to be very blockchain agnostic.
So it can be used across all of the major blockchains
that people are building on. I think can be used across all of the major blockchains that people are
building on. I think, again, going back to the user experience that we want here, people shouldn't
have to think about what chain they're on. They shouldn't have to worry of, is this USDC on
Ethereum or Solana or what have you? And so our infrastructure is kind of a core component in how
people can abstract that away over time for that end user experience that we're aiming towards.
And then Simon, back to you, how critical do you think that flexibility is when you're building for the future where millions of people could be getting paid this way?
Well, I mean, as Bryce said, this is one of the big reasons that we decided to work with Turnkey because they make kind of everything chain agnostic.
At Zbeck, we already support over 17 different chains and we're adding new chains every month.
We believe in a multi-chain future.
That being said, we want to provide users as much flexibility as possible and accepting
how they receive their payroll.
So by telling a user that they must take a stablecoin on a certain chain, all it does is add a point of friction because now the user has to be comfortable and operating within that chain.
So we're really excited to work with Turnkey as the wallet provider, as it really gives our payroll users ultimate flexibility in choosing any stablecoin in the world to accept their payroll in.
I love that. Thank you. Jay, I've got another
question for you. You still there? Have we got you still? Of course, of course. Hey, hey, how's it
going? Good. Jay, I mean, it's really interesting here because you, like you say, Assure's been
a market player for decades now, and we're having these conversations about cross-chain functionality and the ability
to abstract blockchain terminology from the process so that people feel comfortable and
safe and secure.
As a final thought for you, because I'm conscious of everyone's time, when you think about the
future of payroll, what excites you most about where this is headed?
It's a great question. The gig economy has expanded work opportunities. And then stablecoin expands people's ability to accept
various types of currencies for gig work and for all sorts of work. So I look at it as a major expansion of the economy.
And those players in payroll, for example, like Assure, who do not adapt to this expansion
of not only work opportunities and earning opportunities, but also opportunities to get
paid and pay and participate in the economy are going to be the losers. So you really have
to keep up with this. Even though it's hard for me to tell my mom or my older cousin what a stable
coin is, their children and their children's children will be using and spending and earning
with stable coin for generations to come in ways that the older
generation couldn't even have imagined. So those players who don't keep up will be lost.
And we want to make sure that Assure is one of those who is right in the mainstream,
and maybe even an early adopter of these new technologies, ways for people to get paid,
no matter what fiat, no matter what decentralized finance currency or chain or brand name they get their stablecoin with.
We want to be able to pay people with it and have them move in and out of those currencies with ease, virtually, free, and
immediately.
Absolutely.
Very, very exciting.
Great answer to hear something like that from a company such as Ashur.
So thank you so much for coming up.
Simon, I wondered if you wanted to just give us some final thoughts from Zebex's perspective.
When you think about payroll, it's already moved from monthly pay to earned wage
access and more frequent payouts. Blockchain payroll is really the next step in this evolution.
And I'm really proud to see that we're bringing together three giants in their respective field.
Assure's mainstream payroll dominance, Zabek's expertise in streaming payments and stable coin
rails, and of course, Turnkey's industry-leading wallet architecture. This is really the start of conventional payroll, waking up to the power
of stablecoins, and we're all really excited to be here on the cusp of innovation.
Amazing. I really, really am so grateful for all of your time. It's great to have you up, Jay.
Bryce, really amazing to speak with you. I can't wait to speak with you again about this because
clearly you are right at the front of everything that's important when it comes to
breaking down these barriers. I'm also super conscious that we're waiting for the Fed
announcement and that press conference. And so I know a lot of people want to head that way.
So I'm going to wrap this and say thank you to all of our guests. Thank you to Simon for joining us.
Really appreciate you. If anyone wants to give any other thoughts,
then please do now.
Otherwise I'm going to ask JJ to come up and close us for the day,
but thanks to everyone for coming along and listening.
Just remember that every day that ends with Y is an assure payday.
Excellent.
Love that Jay.
Awesome.
All right,
Ben,
then I think we,
Bryce,
my bad.
If you were going to say something, bro, my bad if you're gonna say something bro my bad
nope no thank you awesome so again thanks everybody thanks jay thanks bryce for uh showing up
obviously simon and uh ben of course and uh yeah good luck let's see what happens in a in a few
minutes hopefully uh i think the market's looking uh decent so we'll see good luck everybody and
we'll catch you guys on the next one have a great day
