Veteran US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Trish Turner was appointed to lead the agency’s digital assets division following the departure of two key crypto-focused executives.

Turner, who has spent over 20 years at the IRS and most recently served as a senior adviser within the Digital Assets Office, will now head the unit, according to a report from Bloomberg Tax citing a person familiar with the situation.

Her promotion marks a significant leadership transition at a time when US crypto tax enforcement is facing both internal and external pressures.

On May 5, Sulolit “Raj” Mukherjee and Seth Wilks, two private-sector experts brought in to lead the IRS’s crypto unit, exited after roughly a year in their roles.

Mukherjee served as compliance and implementation executive director, while Wilks oversaw strategy and development. Wilks announced his departure on LinkedIn, while Mukherjee confirmed his decision in a statement to Bloomberg Tax.

“The reality is that federal employees have faced a very difficult environment over the past few months,” Wilks wrote. “If stepping aside helps preserve someone else’s job, then I am at peace with the decision.”

Seth Wilks announced his departure on LinkedIn. Source: Seth Wilks

Related: Coinbase files brief with US Supreme Court in support of taxpayers’ privacy

IRS ramps up crypto scrutiny

The IRS has ramped up its focus on cryptocurrency in recent years, increasing audits and criminal probes targeting digital asset transactions.

It also attempted to introduce broad crypto broker reporting requirements, which drew sharp criticism from industry stakeholders and was eventually overturned by President Donald Trump.

Set to take effect in 2027, the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule would have expanded the tax authority’s existing reporting requirements to include DeFi platforms, requiring them to disclose gross proceeds from crypto sales, including information regarding taxpayers involved in the transactions.

Related: NFT trader faces prison for $13M tax fraud on CryptoPunk profits

Turner’s leadership also comes during a shift in Washington’s approach to crypto regulation.

With the return of the Trump administration in January, federal agencies have scaled back regulations perceived as burdensome to digital asset innovation.

For instance, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped or paused over a dozen enforcement cases against crypto companies. Additionally, the Department of Justice has announced the dissolution of its cryptocurrency enforcement unit, signaling a softer approach to the sector.

Internally, the IRS is also navigating instability. Over 23,000 employees have reportedly expressed interest in resigning after Trump reintroduced a deferred resignation policy, raising concerns about long-term staffing and morale within the agency.

Magazine: Bitcoin to $1M ‘by 2029,’ CIA tips its hat to Bitcoin: Hodler’s Digest, April 27 – May 3

Petr Kozyakov, CEO of crypto payments platform Mercuryo, told Cointelegraph that the future of finance may not be a winner-takes-all scenario but a blend of digital assets and fiat, each used where it makes the most sense. 

In a Cointelegraph interview, Kozyakov said that while crypto payments are seeing an increase in adoption and demand, the asset class won’t be fully replacing fiat money anytime soon. He said the two asset classes will coexist, with people choosing the more convenient payment option in different situations. 

“We don’t think crypto will replace fiat,” Kozyakov told Cointelegraph. “They will coexist, and people will turn to crypto when it’s the easier, more practical option, whether that’s for payroll, yield or money transfers.”

Mercuryo Petr Kozyakov at the Token2049 event in Dubai. Source: Cointelegraph

Crypto payroll gains momentum as payment options expand

Crypto as a salary payment option is no longer a novelty. Kozyakov told Cointelegraph that more companies are settling employee salaries with crypto assets. 

“That is a growing trend,” Kozyakov said. “I see a lot of businesses that are starting to settle with their full-time employees and with their gig employees all over the world, in crypto.”

As more employees receive crypto salaries, new challenges can emerge. According to Kozyakov, workers paid in crypto may ask what they can do next with their funds. “You won’t invest everything and just wait. You need to use it for everyday purchases,” Kozyakov told Cointelegraph. 

This is where practical spending options are needed. Kozyakov said that crypto earners are looking for ways to use their digital asset incomes in daily life scenarios, whether buying coffee, going out for drinks or settling utility bills. 

As crypto becomes an option for employee salaries, there has also been a growing acceptance of crypto in employee contracts in some jurisdictions. In August 2024, a Dubai court recognized crypto as a valid form of salary payment. 

Related: OKX exec warns against hype amid real-world asset tokenization boom

Crypto, a powerful tool for moving and storing money

The executive also told Cointelegraph that Mercuryo views crypto as more than just a speculative asset but a powerful tool for moving and storing value. “Crypto is not only an asset; it’s the perfect rail to move money and store money. And it is essential to be able to spend it.”

The executive said that in practice, spending crypto can still be complex. He said it takes a few steps, including moving it to an exchange, sending it to a bank account and answering “weird” questions from banks. 

Because of this, he highlighted a need for easier ways to spend crypto directly. The executive said that this is where their company comes in. On April 23, the payment services firm collaborated with the hardware wallet company Ledger on a crypto payment card that allows users to spend crypto where Mastercard payments are accepted. 

Kozyakov told Cointelegraph that seamless crypto payment options will drive wider crypto adoption, not just as an investment, but as a true medium of exchange for daily life.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

Opinion by: Simon Cain, contributor at Bitcoin Policy UK

Most jurisdictions globally are researching, developing or implementing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). If you see these as harmless move-with-the-times digital updates of old-fashioned paper money, look again. CBDCs potentially mean financial serfdom via a monetary panopticon where the authorities closely control every transaction. 

If you think this sounds paranoid, just consider the words of Augustin Carstens, head of the Bank for International Settlements — the central bank for the world’s central banks. Lamenting the authorities’ current inability to control cash transactions, he says that with a CBDC, a “central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine use… also we will have the technology to enforce that.. that makes a huge difference with respect to what cash is.”

How “absolute control” might work

CBDCs could be programmed so you can only buy certain things from certain people, at certain times, within specific dates, or only in approved locations. Their validity could depend on compliance with all government policies (climate, medical, social, and tax). They could be subject to maximum or minimum holding limits. They could be programmed to discourage saving and encourage ‘investing’ in approved shares and bonds (such as the new EU ‘SIU’ initiative or in line with UK financial industry lobbying and ‘research’). 

Politicians and central bankers may say they do not intend to implement any such controls, but such assurances are worthless. To quote the UK Parliament’s own Economic Affairs Committee, “while the Governor of the Bank of England told the committee that he did not see a CBDC as a way to implement monetary policy, the committee noted that his successors may disagree”.

Freedom to transact is fundamental to freedom itself. Once you can no longer choose what you do with your money, you’re on the road to monetary serfdom. How can you defend yourself? 

Bitcoin fixes more than monetary serfdom 

Bitcoin fights financial subjugation. Because it’s the world’s most decentralized and censorship-resistant money, Bitcoin held in self-custody cannot be frozen or confiscated, and its transactions cannot be stopped. This isn’t theoretical. It has already been proven in countless cases of financial repression all over the world, whether in Russia and Ukraine, Afghanistan and Cuba, or globally by organizations from WikiLeaks in 2011 to the Bitcoin Humanitarian Alliance in 2025. 

Recent: Is Bitcoin’s future in circular economies or national reserves?

But financial serfdom isn’t the only risk with CBDCs. The UK’s Economic Affairs Committee also points out that “a centralized CBDC ledger, which would be a critical piece of national infrastructure, could be a target for attack from hostile state and non-state actors.” Governments and public entities are always being hacked and leaking data, which they exacerbate by constantly hacking each other. Having your access to money entirely dependent on their competence is a terrible idea. 

Bitcoin fights financial institutional failure. And again, this isn’t theoretical — it has also already been proven. When banks fail, or their systems go down, Bitcoin always remains up and running because it is the world’s most reliable computer network. For well over a decade, Bitcoin has not been down for even a fraction of a second. 

Bitcoin is ultra-decentralized, and there have been zero successful hacks of the Bitcoin ledger itself during that period, despite its worth being in the trillions of dollars. Public or private, monetary or otherwise, no other large network can come close to this reliability and resistance to physical, virtual or political attack.

Nowhere is immune from digital fiat 

CBDCs look to be coming to the major Western economies. The European Central Bank is set to complete preparations for its ‘digital euro’ CBDC this year. Americans may now have a presidential order “prohibiting… a CBDC within the jurisdiction of the United States,” but stablecoins look set to become government CBDCs disguised in decentralized private-bank clothing, able to perform the same functions. 

The current US administration’s enthusiasm for stablecoins is remarkably aligned with the favored CBDC framework of the BIS, “a hybrid model which allows the division of labor between the central bank and private intermediaries.” For a peek into this potential stablecoin-as-CBDC world, just look at what being embedded in the US dollar system already means for the world’s leading stablecoin. “We follow US laws and regulations when it comes to freezing,” says Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, which doesn’t even operate inside the United States. “We have on-boarded the FBI and US secret services; we work with the Department of Justice almost daily and the Treasury.”

Whether it’s called a CBDC or not, you’ll likely soon be subjected to some form of digital fiat. But, at present, there’s nothing to stop you from accessing some self-sovereign ‘outside-the-system’ money. As permissionless peer-to-peer digital cash, Bitcoin can defend against monetary serfdom and protect from the failures of financial institutions. And, in its own sly roundabout way, it is the best and only truly decentralized tool for doing so.

Opinion by: Simon Cain, contributor at Bitcoin Policy UK.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.