New Treasury Crypto Counselor Tyler Williams Tells Crowd the Goal Is to "Outcompete the Rest of the World"

Within hours of the announcement that he'd started as the crypto counselor for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, former Galaxy Digital lawyer Tyler Williams was addressing a private digital assets event in Washington, D.C., telling the crowd that helping Congress get stablecoin legislation across the goal line is a worthy opening effort.

The former Galaxy Digital lawyer who joined the U.S. Treasury to advise on crypto is already hitting the ground running, urging colleagues to help get stablecoin legislation across the goal line.

"Be as supportive as we can to our friends in Congress who are working on stablecoin policy, I think that's a very good use case for us to be pushing," Tyler Williams, the crypto counselor for Secretary Scott Bessent, told attendees at a private digital assets event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Williams, who clocked a few weeks in the role after leaving his post as a regulatory lawyer for Galaxy, added that the fact that he has a job at the U.S. Treasury Department is an excellent sign for the industry.

"It's a great sign to see the administration officials focused on this issue and the bipartisan support in Congress for advancing useful policy," he said.

Indeed, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), who is now at the helm of the digital assets subcommittee in the House Financial Services Committee, said at the same Wednesday evening event that "we've really turned a corner."

The lawmaker said the U.S. needs to "outcompete the rest of the world" on nurturing digital assets, and he predicted the bipartisan energy that saw dozens of Democrats support the last session's crypto market-structure legislation, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), will "continue to grow."

That came as a welcome sentiment to Chainlink's co-founder, Sergey Nazarov, who said he's seeing a "very productive mindset" in Washington.

"I think people are realizing that we can't just have the same old, tired institutions and expect to win the new technological revolution," Nazarov added.

Williams referenced the work led by David Sacks, the crypto czar appointed by President Donald Trump, and he said, "I see all the pieces of the puzzle moving in one direction, which is to advance the U.S. leadership on digital issues."

While he noted agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission already moving on new initiatives, he said "we have our hands full" inside his department.

So many aspects of the Treasury's jurisdiction fall across the industry, including tax policy, sanctions, money-laundering oversight and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), he said, but a team there is "eager to work on this issue.

"I think they're excited about the prospect of having a refreshed view from the government," said Williams, who is marking his second stint in the department, having worked there during Trump's first term.