Barefoot Innovation Podcast

The Trump Administration and Congress are opening doors to a range of new financial activities in the U.S. that are built on blockchains, including in digital assets and stablecoins. As we work on this show, bipartisan stablecoin legislation in the U.S. seems imminent. Meanwhile, federal bank regulatory agencies are allowing banks to engage in crypto activities like custody. And the Comptroller of the Currency is slated to become the federal agency licensing and regulating nonbank stablecoins, with a role too for the Federal Reserve in market oversight.

Meanwhile, excitement is brewing – worldwide – around the potential of stablecoins to be a game changer, possibly laying the foundations of a new payments infrastructure layer that could bring big gains in efficiency, speed, and flexibility. While that argument has many detractors, there is a growing chorus predicting a new era of payments, driving toward goals like lower costs, easier cross border payments, remedies for fiat currencies that undergo high inflation or value fluctuation, and geopolitical ramifications for the role of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. There is also a school of thought that, if done right, the new system will reduce, rather than enable, financial crime.

All these developments make this the perfect time for a conversation with Tyler Williams, Counselor to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for Digital Assets. We covered a wide range of topics, including the vision and goals behind the Administration’s crypto strategy, the outcomes they are aiming to achieve, the risks they anticipate, and the key issues being addressed in the pending legislation. We also talk about how they are viewing stablecoin-based payments in the context of geopolitical currents and the role of the United States in the world. Tyler and his colleagues at Treasury and other agencies have been engaged in a massive round of listening sessions with  stakeholders – he, himself, has held over 400 meetings. In our talk, he shares what they have been learning and, again, what they hope to achieve.

Let me also mention that our setting for this conversation resonated with meaning. Tyler and I sat down in the fabled and beautiful Cash Room, which is just inside the main entrance of the Treasury Department building, next to the White House. You will enjoy hearing Tyler’s brief description of the room’s history, which includes having been the site of the inauguration of President Ulysses Grant, after the Civil War. 

I know many of you listened to our recent show with Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney Hood. You may recall that he talked about that same time period, because it was when the OCC was established. Then, as now, the United States was grappling with how to create a new paradigm for money and currency, trying to make money work better as a reliable and efficient method of payment and store of value. The paradigm shift in the 1860s is why, to this day, America’s oldest financial regulatory agency – the one that oversees our national banks – carries a name that sounds archaic today: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. 

As Tyler and I were chatting in the venerable Cash Room, the world is once again exploring whether changes in law, combined with changes in technology, can lead us to better forms of money.

And, again, if Congress passes the pending legislation, the primary federal regulatory authority for stablecoins in the U.S. will be…yes, the Comptroller of the Currency.

More on Tyler Williams

Tyler Williams serves as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury, advising the Secretary on policy matters regarding digital assets and blockchain technology. Mr. Williams most recently was Global Head of Policy at Galaxy Digital. Previously he owned and operated his own financial services consulting firm in Washington, D.C., advising financial services companies and corporate leadership. He formerly served as a Senior Advisor at FS Vector, and was a senior policy advisor for Governor Glenn Younkin’s campaign. 

Mr. Williams’ experience also includes serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy at the Treasury Department during President Trump’s first term, and as Banking Counsel for Senator Thom Tillis. He holds a BA in Economics and a minor in Biology from Kenyon College, as well as a JD from The George Washington University School of Law.

More for our Listeners

Upcoming Podcasts

We have wonderful upcoming episodes. We’ll have SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who will talk with us about the crypto task force she is leading. We’ll have a discussion with Saket Narayan of AWS, about how to modernize the regulators’ own technology. We’ll have a show with Carole House and Amanda Wick on financial crime. And much more!

AIR Events

AI Fraud Battlefront: A huge thank you to all who joined us in last week’s AI Fraud Battlefront faceoff in Washington D.C. We had teams of financial companies (tradfi and crypto), law enforcement, consumer advocates, and regulators using AI to create fraud attacks and fraud defenses, and we were overwhelmed by the learnings. I don’t think I’ve ever before heard people talk about a financial regulatory event using the word “terrifying.” The speed and ease with which almost anyone can now create wickedly deceptive AI fraud is genuinely shocking. More to come on our learnings and next steps.

Fighting Fraud in West Africa:  We’re heading to Lagos, Nigeria for a Payments & Fraud Policy Sprint, following up on the learnings from the TechSprint we did last year on payments fraud and consumer protection in West Africa.

Calling all Regulators / Meet in London: We are excited to be offering a four day learning program in London in the autumn, inviting regulators and central banks from around the world. The program shares AIR’s Innovation Elements methodology that regulators can use to build your innovation capabilities. 

Upcoming Speaking Events by AIR’s team

I’m also looking forward to speaking at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s annual conference, in Washington in August, on generative AI and nonprofit organizations. This month I’ll be making a keynote at the Federal Reserve’s conference on financial inclusion. And I’ll be at Money 2020 in the fall in Las Vegas, doing a fireside chat with Acting Comptroller Rodney Hood. 

Here’s a full list of speaking engagements and events.

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