How Citi Is Rethinking Digital Assets: Beyond Hype To Infrastructure

Executives are rethinking capital markets through tokenized money and securities. Here’s how these moves could reshape efficiency, liquidity, and client demand.

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The passage of the GENIUS Act, the first federal framework for stablecoins, is prompting banks to consider new roles, such as custody providers, issuers of stablecoins, and architects of hybrid digital products, that integrate traditional banking strengths with crypto-enabled innovation. While implementation hurdles remain, capital requirements, compliance infrastructure, and infrastructure choices (public vs private blockchains), banks are clearly reassessing their strategy.

For global banks, this marks a tipping point. What was once seen as a crypto experiment is now shaping the very rails of financial markets. Senior executives across the industry must recognize that the shift is less about chasing hype and more about modernizing the infrastructure of finance.

To understand how banks are approaching this new frontier, I sat down with Artem Korenyuk, Head of Enterprise Digital Assets at Citi, and Will Peck, Head of Digital Assets at WisdomTree. Together, we discussed how large banks and asset managers are embedding blockchain into their core businesses, the challenges they face, and the models that will separate tomorrow’s leaders from the laggards.

Video: Artem Korenyuk, Managing Director & Head of Enterprise Digital Assets at Citi

Citi’s Enterprise-Wide Bet: A Unified Digital Asset Platform

Artem explained how Citi’s approach goes beyond pilots or proof-of-concepts. The bank has built CIDAP (Citi Integrated Digital Asset Platform), a foundation designed to support every digital asset initiative across the firm.

“CIDAP is the backbone behind everything we’re doing,” he said. “It allows us to tokenize money, securities, and other assets in a way that integrates directly with Citi’s existing products. Clients don’t need to adopt new systems to benefit from digital assets.”

Many banks have struggled with fragmented initiatives that don’t scale. Citi’s unified platform creates consistency, speed, and reusability. When treasurers use Citi Token Services to move cash 24/7 across branches, they interact with the bank exactly as before. Behind the scenes, blockchain is powering the transfer.

At this point Will weighed in from a different perspective. WisdomTree is a New York–based asset manager best known for its exchange-traded funds (ETFs), managing over $100 billion in assets for retail and institutional investors. Will leads its digital asset strategy and explained that WisdomTree built its Prime and Connect platforms with the same principle in mind: make tokenization feel seamless for clients. “Clients want the benefits of tokenization without the friction of re-engineering their processes,” he explains. The observation reinforced Artem’s point: adoption will come not from novelty but from making digital assets invisible within established systems.

Collaboration as a Competitive Advantage

Because blockchain is a network-based technology, Citi has prioritized industry-wide collaboration. Artem highlighted Citi’s participation in projects such as the Regulated Settlement Network, where banks and regulators work together on tokenized deposits, e-money, and central bank money.

“Interoperability has been talked about for as long as blockchain has been in financial services,” he noted. “It’s about technical connections, but also legal, operational, and business interoperability. None of this works if it isn’t built collaboratively.”

This emphasis on shared infrastructure marks a shift in mindset. Historically, banks competed by building proprietary systems. But in a tokenized future, the moat comes from how effectively an institution engages in open networks.

Will added that the same logic applies to asset managers. “The firms that make on- and off-ramps smoothest, that let assets flow seamlessly across blockchains, will have an edge”. Clients won’t reward institutions for siloed platforms; they will choose those that build bridges across the ecosystem.

The Hard Part: Governance, Talent, and Risk

Both Artem and Will acknowledged that the true challenges are not technological but organizational.

At Citi, Artem emphasized the work involved in standing up governance frameworks and hiring talent with both blockchain expertise and institutional experience. “This couldn’t be a startup-style MVP,” he said. “We needed institutional-grade solutions that scale safely, with the right risk controls in place.”

Will added that for WisdomTree, the cultural challenge was equipping a traditional asset manager to serve a crypto-native audience. The firm responded by building parallel platforms that could appeal to both groups, traditional clients exploring onchain finance and those who already live in it.

What unites both perspectives is the recognition that digital assets are not “just another asset class.” Bearer instruments on public blockchains are irreversible, which means that a simple operational slip can translate into permanent loss. Banks and asset managers alike are having to re-engineer not only their technology but also their risk frameworks.

Beyond Efficiency: Unlocking Trapped Value

When we discussed the economics of tokenization, Artem stressed that the opportunity goes well beyond efficiency. “This is about unlocking value trapped by legacy systems,” he explained. “With blockchain, cash, securities, and other instruments can all exist on the same rails. That allows for delivery-versus-payment and other programmable models that were simply too complex before.”

Will agreed, but framed it through the lens of product innovation. He sees the biggest near-term opportunity in pairing stablecoins, already widely used for payments and treasury, with yield-bearing tokenized funds. “That combination gives you both a medium of exchange and an income-generating asset,” he said. Together, these could form the core of integrated tokenized finance.

The overlap in their perspectives was striking. Whether from the vantage point of a global bank or an asset manager, the potential is not just about faster settlement but about freeing up collateral, creating liquidity in previously illiquid assets, and generating new sources of revenue.

Where the Industry is Heading

Looking ahead, Artem envisions broader adoption of programmable models like delivery-versus-payment across multiple asset classes, supported by a unified infrastructure like CIDAP. Will expects integrated tokenized finance and interoperability across blockchains to define the winners.

Taken together, the conversation underscored how quickly digital assets are moving from experiment to execution. Citi is showing what enterprise-scale infrastructure looks like, while WisdomTree demonstrates how asset managers can tailor offerings to both crypto-native and traditional clients.

The common thread is clear: this is no longer about pilots or innovation theater. It is about production systems, hard economics, and the competitive advantage that comes from redefining how financial markets work. The firms that wait risk watching from the sidelines as their peers shape the next rails of global finance.

For more like this on Forbes, check out Surprising Ways The GENIUS Act Will Impact Financial Services and The Legacy Banks Quietly Building The Future Of Finance.