Shahmir Khaliq, Head of Services at Citi, on Digital Assets
Citi's Shahmir Khaliq, Head of Services (one of Citi's 5 business lines), just made it explicit: digital assets are no longer an experiment. They are becoming core financial infrastructure.
Key takeaways from Making It Real: Digital Assets.
1️⃣ Digital assets are now a C-suite priority
Focus is shifting to:
- Production-grade infrastructure
- Client use cases
- Commercial viability
👉 In my GTM conversations, counterparts have moved from innovation teams to revenue owners.
2️⃣ Tokenization is about market infrastructure
Tokenization is as much about post-trade and market structure upgrade as it is about bringing assets onchain.
Key benefits:
- Reduced friction in settlement
- Cross-border harmonization
- Improved collateral mobility
👉 Treat it as infrastructure, you control the flow
3️⃣ Stablecoins & tokenized bank deposits are parallel monetary rails
- Stablecoins are evolving into 24/7 liquidity infrastructure and real-time payment rails
- Bank-issued tokenized deposit may surpass stablecoins in volume
👉 This sets up a the single biggest decision facing banks: own your own money rail or be plugged into others
4️⃣ Institutional adoption is use-case driven
- Payments (treasury, cross-border)
- Collateral management
- Tokenized funds and securities
5️⃣ Coexistence with legacy systems (not replacement)
Shahmir compares digital assets to high-speed rail built alongside existing infrastructure.
Legacy systems will continue operating and gradually integrate with onchain rails.
➡️ Strategic implications
1️⃣ The battleground is infrastructure control
Whoever owns:
- tokenized money rails
- custody + settlement layer
→ captures sticky long-term value
2️⃣ Distribution + integration > asset issuance
Issuing tokens is easy but embedding into:
- treasury workflows
- trading systems
- client journeys
→ is the real business moat
✅ Explore more research on tokenized funds, stablecoins, tokenized deposits, market infrastructure, and collateral mobility:
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