Tokenized Podcast
Why Every Bank Needs 24/7 Cash Settlement Now
🇬🇧 EN🇪🇸 ES
Ask the tutor about this video
Sign in with a verified email and ask the tutor anything about this video.
TL;DR
Research summary
▶ Introduction and Rugg’s path into digital assets
The opening teaser presents Rugg’s view that successful implementation and scaling could enable real-time money, stablecoins and tokenized deposits to support atomic settlement and DVP. Hosts Simon Taylor and Ran Goldi introduce the series and Citi guest Ryan Rugg, Global Head of Digital Assets at Citi Token Services. Rugg recounts moving from capital markets into blockchain: after studying computer science and finance, she spent 10 years in capital markets, read about blockchain in 2015, and joined R3 as employee number 20. She says R3 was then a consortium of 65 banks; it grew from 20 to 450 employees, and she helped raise a $117 million Series A. She later led IBM’s Americas blockchain practice before joining Citi to build digital-asset technology from inside a bank.
▶ Implementation, compliance and client experience
Taylor asks what Rugg learned at IBM about client concerns. Rugg says IBM’s acquisition of Promontory, whose staff included former OCC, FDIC and SEC personnel, highlighted risk, compliance and governance. She cites work on Wyoming’s digital-asset legislation, Anchorage’s BitLicense, stablecoin launches and transaction due-diligence monitoring. At Citi, she says the design aims to hide blockchain complexity behind an API or a drop-down choice, and clients do not need a new account to use Citi Token Services. Taylor describes compliance as including teams, audits, record keeping and training, and says at least 50% of it is record keeping and training; he also stresses making the service turnkey for bank customers.
▶ Citi Token Services and its first use case
Rugg says liquidity management was Citi Token Services’ first use case, based on surveying top clients who wanted to move money globally regardless of weekends or holidays. She says the service is live in five branches with two currencies, enabling transfers outside banking hours; one example is moving money from Singapore to the US to buy bonds or equities and meet margin calls during Chinese New Year. Citi’s strategy is “build, buy, partner”: Citi Token Services is built in-house, Citi partners with Coinbase and Visa for stablecoin pay-ins and pay-outs, and has invested in Finality and BB&K. Rugg says the service must work with traditional assets and cash. Taylor says Citi was moving $4 trillion per day on traditional rails when Rugg joined in 2022. Rugg says Citi had worked in digital assets for over a decade, and that its service is embedded in Citi Direct; she says clients can choose a payment rail while Citi handles minting, transfer and redemption into account cash.
▶ Client adoption and programmable shipping payments
Rugg says Citi has hundreds of clients on Citi Token Services, though most are not heavy users: examples include unexpected payments after M&A activity, e-commerce firms sending money to Asia and payment companies using it in real time. She says most enterprises receiving stablecoins convert them back to fiat immediately, and she has seen very few hold them on their balance sheets because their infrastructure is not set up for it. In a shipping-company and canal use case, a tokenized deposit and smart contract automated payment when a ship received fuel, addressing the constraint of letters of credit and banking hours. Rugg says trade remains paper-heavy and that automation can ease latency. Discussing earlier trade-finance networks, she points to ownership, data-sharing, profit structure, multiple contracts and wet-signature requirements as reasons initiatives struggled or failed.
▶ Interoperability and industry-owned networks
Taylor cites a study he attributes to Barclays estimating that removing paper could save the industry around $40 billion a year in paper and DHL costs. He says corporate clients may manage hundreds or thousands of bank accounts and need multi-bank, multi-asset and cross-border connectivity. Rugg says Citi is a correspondent bank for 1,500 banks, and that more than 300 are on its 24/7 USD clearing solution; Citi is integrating Citi Token Services to provide clients access to those 300-plus banks. She says networks must be built for the industry by the industry: Citi can contribute to standards and openness but could not own a network if peers are to join. She describes Corda version differences and lack of backward compatibility as past interoperability challenges, and says industry-built networks such as Swift and TCH have scaled. Taylor says Zelle is the most popular and most-used peer-to-peer money transfer service in the United States and is going global using a stablecoin, describing its ownership as largely bank-based. The discussion closes with the hosts’ hope for inclusive ownership across banks and non-banks.
▶ Fireblocks sponsor message
The show reads a Fireblocks sponsorship message. It describes Fireblocks as serving businesses including Visa, Worldpay, Bridge and Revolut, and claims more than $100 billion in monthly stablecoin volume. The ad says its infrastructure supports PSPs, fintechs, remitters and banks with issuing, moving, holding and managing stablecoins, plus payment accounts, liquidity management and on- and off-ramps in over 60 currencies.
▶ Stablecoin outlook and coexistence with deposits
Taylor refers to a Citi Stablecoin 2030 report co-authored by Rugg, saying it projects stablecoin circulation of $1.9 trillion in a base case and $4 trillion in a bull scenario by 2030, while arguing tokenized bank deposits could ultimately represent greater transaction volume. Rugg says Citi Token Services processed “millions” at this time last year and is now processing “billions,” without specifying the unit or exact period. She says Citi will continue stablecoin partnerships for pay-ins and pay-outs, including with Coinbase, and is building a custody solution for clients who want to buy and hold stablecoins. Rugg views stablecoins and tokenized deposits as complementary rails for 24/7 cash movement and says combining them could enable instant fungibility between cash and tokens; she cites Citi’s five live branches and says a client could redeem a stablecoin into euros instantaneously.
▶ Stablecoin transaction history and compliance
Taylor raises the question of whether tokens can be treated like cash, given the visible transaction history and unresolved compliance questions about how far back institutions should audit and what makes a token clean. Rugg says Citi Token Services applies traditional sanctions checks and controls to its KYC/AML clients. For stablecoins and other assets, she asks who is responsible if a client deposits tokens that were used five hops earlier in illicit behavior, and whether some number of hops could make them “clean quote unquote.” She says these answers must become clear for large institutions and partner banks, and that Citi will not proceed unless its regulators explicitly permit an activity. The hosts then turn to broader asset tokenization and the foundations being set for the next decade.
▶ Tokenized cash, atomic settlement and closing
Rugg says the key unlock is DVP atomic settlement with other assets across the ecosystem. She recalls that R3 explored tokenizing bonds, equities and mortgages, but without cash on ledger settlement still relied on traditional rails and retained latency. She says tokenized cash and cash equivalents, money-market funds and commercial paper are beginning to scale, and envisions always-on, multi-asset, multi-currency and cross-border networks. She says younger users will expect instantaneous asset and cash movement rather than waiting T+2 or T+1. In response to the hosts’ question about whether stablecoins will be a story or a fact 20 years from now, Rugg says successful implementation and scaling could make real-time money, stablecoins and tokenized deposits support atomic settlement and rewire the financial system. The hosts thank her, exchange contact details and sign off; music follows.
Full transcript
[0:00] I think if we're successful in this industry and we continue to implement and scale and like again, I've talked about it earlier off and skate that complexity of blockchain like we will have real-time value of money stable coins tokenized deposits across the ecosystem that you know, truly allows for that atomic settlement and DVP and like rewiring the whole financial system. >> Welcome to tokenized. My name is Simon Taylor and this [music] is the show focused on stable coins and the institutional adoption of tokenized [music] real world assets. I am your
[0:31] host for today author of fintech brain food and head of market dev at tempo and I'm joined as always by my friend my co-host for this stable coin story series. It's story time once again. It's Ryan Goldie SVP of payments and network at fireblocks. How you doing Goldie? >> I am great. Happy to be here again for another exciting story and and this one is I think this one will surprise a lot of our listeners and viewers. >> Hey, well, just remind everybody what story time is all about. >> Well, as as everyone knows and and if
[1:01] you're listening to our podcast here then you definitely know that the world is now filled with stable coins. There's issuers. There's more and more use cases. There's more I would say consortiums and non-consortiums popping up every day. As you've seen our last episode there's a lot of tectonic shifts, but people want to know what's happening behind the stories that you read on PR behind what you're reading in all in LinkedIn, right? And today we're going to talk about the story of one of the world's largest and I probably most important bank for payments
[1:33] and the world and the bank is is moving into digital asset and that of course is Citibank. Simon, if you want to present our guest. >> Yeah, welcome to the show Ryan Rugg who is global head of digital assets for City Token Services. How you doing Ryan? >> Great Simon. Thanks for having me. >> Well, thank you for being with us. You got one heck of a story. Before we get to that story, I got to remind viewers and listeners that views of our contributors today are their own and might not reflect those of companies they represent. Please don't take anything we say as tax, legal, or
[2:04] financial advice. And reminder number two is this series is brought to you and made possible by our friends at Fireblocks. All right, for those who don't know, I'd love for you to just walk through your career a little bit, Ryan. Um you JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, then you ended up um sort of working in digital assets with IBM and R3. Now at Citi. Is this all Richard Gendel Brown's fault? Like what happens in this story? >> And and and do you you know, do you does your family know that you went from
[2:35] being like an executive director at JP Morgan into uh our space of blockchain? Tell us the truth. >> I'm pretty sure my family still thinks I'm like a stockbroker, which I never was. I just happened to work in markets. My mom's like, "Oh, she's a stockbroker." I'm like, "I'm not a stockbroker." But um you know, it's been it's really interesting. Like, you know, so I was a computer science finance major. I started my career out in tech. But you know, you're 21 years old, you walk into these large institutes. I thought I was going to, you know, rewire, you know, a bank. And I was doing like VLOOKUPs on
[3:05] spreadsheets. And I was like, "This is so boring." Um so I worked my way to the front office and worked in cap markets for 10 years. And and I loved it. And you know, I was doing really innovative structures for clients. But then post-crisis, you know, after Dodd-Frank, a lot of those innovative structures you couldn't do for clients. So I went back to my roots. I started taking, you know, Python classes cuz I had done C++ in college. And it was really fascinating. I was like and I was meeting colleagues that had, you know, I read an article about blockchain in 2015.
[3:36] I was meeting colleagues who hadn't, you know, made the jump over um into various different entities. And I was fascinated. I'm like, "If this technology was around when I started my career, it could completely reinvent all the financial plumbing." So then I went down the rabbit hole. I was meeting you know, at the time, you know, R3 and just more exploratory to understand the technology and what it was and, you know, they offered me a job. And it was one of those things that, you know, I looked around. I didn't want my boss's boss's job. I had been, you know, in capital markets for
[4:06] quite some time and if I didn't make this career pivot, I probably never would. So, I went to work for R3, was employee number 20, like loved it. You know, it was a consortium at the time we were 65 different banks trying to solve a lot of different issues within using blockchain technology. Similar to what's happening now if you think about all the different consortiums that are coming coming out. So, you know, we went from 20 to 450 employees. I got to do everything from help raise a 117 million series A to literally sweeping the
[4:36] floors, you know, at a at a >> [laughter] >> at a at a startup you kind of do it all. Um, but really where I struggled was like the implementation and scaling of this technology. So, you know, IBM approached me about coming to run their, you know, blockchain practice for Americas. I'm like, where I was struggling, you know, we had I had 100 scrum masters, we were a global team, we had, you know, risk compliance, the cloud, all the different facets that where we were kind of, I would say, struggling to like really implement and scale. So, went to work there and it
[5:07] was, you know, great and then that ironic part I was pitching City to hire IBM and they're like, why don't you come run digital assets for us and, you know, I kind of took a pause in my and I thought, you know, I had I had worked for a fintech startup, I had just done a SPAC at that time, you know, I'd worked for a large global system integrator, but I had never been in the seat myself. I had never been actually within in the seat building this technology from the ground up. And that's kind of, you know, what brought me here and brought City Token Services. I really wanted to understand
[5:37] like how these banks like implement and scale technology that could make, you know, very impactful, you know, I would say progress for them. So, that's a nutshell what I've been up to the last, you know, decade in this space, which is I guess makes me one of the OG in here. >> I think I think that that's fascinating, especially because as you said, I mean, R3 is was still is a creation hub in a way. And and IBM is sort of like an implementation hub. And I think it's it's a very different roles. Like in one you ideate, in the
[6:08] second you actually meet, you know, the clients and see what's their pain. I wonder before we move on just like what did you learn at IBM about all the pains clients are having while they're looking at digital assets, all their skepticism, like like what did you take from there about your, you know, view on digital assets? >> Yeah, it was, you know, with having so IBM had acquired a company called Promontory, which was all ex-OCC, FDIC, SEC. So, really I would say the focus
[6:39] on, you know, the importance of risk, compliance, governance was really brought to light for me there. And like, you know, at the time Julian and the team had wrote the speedy agreement for state of Wyoming, which is probably the first legislative piece within digital assets. You know, they had gotten Anchorage or BitLicense. We are working with several other companies who now have, you know, stablecoins out there about their launch. We were working with the large exchanges on implementing, you know, the the importance of transaction due diligence monitoring. Like, you know, so it was a really interesting journey in that. And a lot of the things
[7:10] that I had learned there, I brought here with me, you know, about the risk, the compliance, the safety, the soundness, you know, about how you implement it at scale, how you make sure, you know, from a client side, like the implementation has to be seamless. So, a lot of the even like the architectural decisions we made when designing City Token Service, like we often skip the complexity of a blockchain, right? Where clients use an API or a drop-down box to be able to move money globally. And that was by design. I had the benefit of sitting at IBM and implementing for other banks,
[7:41] right? And seen how their architecture was and understand what worked and what didn't work and what was going to scale. So, coming here, making some clear decisions pretty early on about like even as little as like you don't even have to open a new account to use City Token Service. It's part of like your larger, you know, agreement. We we enable it in the background. Like I believe this technology will be successful where we're not sitting here talking about the technology. Just how we don't talk about cloud. Are you on prem? Are you in in a cloud? Like that's what makes this technology successful. >> I I think that's such a great point. Um
[8:11] people forget that uh compliance is this complete iceberg. You know, like if you're outside of a bank, compliance sounds like, you know, BSA and AML and a bunch of buzzwords and you're going to do KYC and due diligence. But when you're on the inside, it's teams and it's audits and like 50% of it at least is just the record keeping and making sure people are trained. There's so much that goes into it, so much hidden pain. And then that's just for the bank. What about their customer? How are they going to sell this product to their customer?
[8:41] And if you can just make that turnkey, that's a completely different conversation. So, like you were sort of alluding there to when you came in, you sort of did a lot of stuff. So, give me give me the 30,000-foot view. What is the digital asset strategy today at Citibank? >> Yeah. And I wish it was me. Like it would There is a massive team behind like City Token Service and all that we did and it's been incredible working with the team um here at City. And like the strategy I would say overall, you know, the first use case that we went after was
[9:11] liquidity management, right? we had surveyed our top clients about what was their real pain point is, you know, they want to be able to move money regardless of weekends, holidays, if it's 4th of July, it doesn't make a difference. They want to be able to move money globally. So, that's really where we started um and you know, we're live in five branches with two currencies where if it's Saturday, Sunday, you know, Friday 5:00 p.m. and it's 5:00 a.m. in Singapore, clients can now move money. And you're starting to see, you know, the I would say the different use cases and applicability. We thought liquidity
[9:42] management, but now we have like a broker-dealer who's using it when it's like, you know, Chinese New Year in China and like, you know, in um Singapore and the banks close, they can now move money to the US to buy bonds, equities, and margin calls. So, the strategy overall though is build, buy, partner. So, City City City Token Services is an example of what we've been building the last couple years, but we also, you know, we partner, you know, an example of what we're doing with Coinbase Visa out there to be able to do pay-ins and pay-outs with stablecoins. We also, what I say, buy, invest, you know, invested in
[10:13] Finality, we invest in BB&K, and we'll continue with that strategy, you know, it's And again, we're just viewing this as another set of rails that if and when our clients want to use it, they're able to use it, but it has to be fully backward-compatible, interoperable with traditional assets and cash to be scalable otherwise. >> So, when you joined City uh back in in in '22, uh it was already moving $4 trillion a day on traditional rails, right? That's
[10:43] like one of the largest payment flows on Earth. Uh I I mean, again, extraordinary baseline to to be building from, but what was the mandate for digital asset as as you came in? Like, what was the internal conversation like? Was there already a clear strategy uh around, you know, tokenized deposits and versus stablecoins? Or was it still being con- contemplated? >> I mean, City has been within digital assets for over a decade. So, they had been, you know, investing in this technology and setting up the various
[11:14] teams for quite some time prior to me joining. So, there was a really good foundation from, you know, I would say, people working at the firm prior. You know, obviously with this new administration coming in is really what I would say gave digital assets more, I would say, like sunlight, right? Where we had been working behind the scenes for a decade as mentioned. It just wasn't kind of brought to the forefront. But recognizing that we're at, you know, this I would say kind of point in time, right? Where it's not just blockchain.
[11:44] You're seeing AI, you're seeing quantum, you're seeing all these different technologies really come together to change the way that not just financial services, all industries are based. So I think that, you know, a combination of, you know, the foundations the team have been laying for last decade to, you know, what is going on from a regulatory legislative, you know, standpoint had brought more sunlight onto what, you know, Citi was doing, but it wasn't necessarily new. Like, you know, it takes decades and years to build this technology. I mean, to really truly scale it. Like we're fully embedded into
[12:15] our traditional solutions by design. As I mentioned, like I want our clients to have a seamless experience like logging onto Citi Direct, which is our UI, you're able to choose a drop-down box box Citi Token Service or any other type of payment rail. And that's it. And we'll mint the token in one branch, we'll send it to another, we'll burn it as cash for cash in your account. So your reporting, your end of day is synonymous to what they know today. You know, do I think that potentially could change in the future where clients want to hold wallets and manage keys and, yeah, host nodes? Yeah, but that was not
[12:46] my experience at IBM. Clients were not at that maturity level to be able to do that, run that infrastructure themselves. >> Yeah, that I don't know if everybody's fully ready for Tony McLaughlin's vision yet of being, you know, everybody will run run wallets, but I I do think it's a compelling vision, right? You could imagine that instead of having uh 30 different accounts with each bank, I have one wallet and and I can move it 24/7. But the first thing is actually all of my reporting as a big corporate client has to continue to work. And if I can just have that 24/7 thing in
[13:17] multiple currencies, that would be really, really nice. I I'm curious like when did uh you know, you said we mentioned the new administration and um, always seen the passage of the genius act. When did stable coins become a focus and and sort of how much of your time is spent on that versus token services and what talk to me about the portfolio of clients that are asking about it versus, I guess, my assumption would be the larger book that just wants 24/7 cross-border. What What does that look like for you today? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, as you know, we
[13:48] have hundreds of clients on City Token Service, um, but the majority of them are still using it if they misforecast, if they have like unexpected payment like from an M&A activity. It's not the traditional because treasury management systems are not set up all clients for real time. So, take tokens out like they're not set up for real-time kind of management of, um, you know, cash and assets. But, we do have some like large e-commerce platforms on that are, you know, selling goods, you know, all day long sending money back to Asia. We do have some, you
[14:19] know, payment P&I companies using it real time. But, I would still say the majority is not a heavy user. And like I when I think of tokenized deposits, when I think of stable coins, it's just another, you know, payment rail. Like, again, we're going to provide provide both to our clients to enable it. But, the majority of any enterprises that do, for the most part, take in stables, convert it back to fiat immediately. I have I've seen very few clients holding it on their balance sheet right now. And it's just because their infrastructure is not set up for it on their side, um,
[14:50] currently. >> And and I guess talking specifically about clients like you ran this pilot with you know, with ships in the canal ecosystem, uh, letters of credit, fuel payments, smart contracts triggering automatically when the fuel was received. That was That was a very concrete image of like what programmable money might look like in the real world. Can you walk us through what happened there and what's the story there? Because I think that's like one of the most I guess compelling examples of how programmable money could be used.
[15:21] >> Yeah, absolutely. And like was you know, we're really focused on you know, solving client pain points. So you know, a large shipping company and a canal came to us with this pain this pain point of not being able to do you know, move ships through a canal like off hours unless they had letters of credit but you know, then you're constructed to like the banking hours. So we took our tokenized deposit and made it as you said programmable with smart contracts. Like if this happens then do that. In this case it was you know, if the ship received fuel automatically the funds.
[15:51] So instead of having to you know, the very I would say you know, trade has been notorious for being paper and like slow automating that whole entire process just to you know, I would say kind of ease the pain points in the you know, latency within the system. So the programmability aspect of this technology is really powerful, right? It's the mutable record programmability, you know, 24/7 nature of it. Um, so I think those types of use cases will continue to evolve um, as we've kind of start to see more client adoption across
[16:21] the ecosystem. >> I I I I think that over the last probably like two three years we we've seen a lot where stable coins have got to into like you know, various verticals and I think that the B2B commodity trading space was the most receptive one. And not a lot of people know this but even today uh, you know, some companies like even Tether for example are actually working with a lot of those uh, you know, trade
[16:52] companies and uh, in essence providing them credit sometimes or just helping them do the movement of funds because again it's those companies correct me if I'm wrong Ryan that really need to move money as fast as they can so they can actually release their cargo obviously, right? Like you mentioned and cuz otherwise their business their business really depends on the speed of money movement. Did Do that as well from from these types of clients? >> It's really interesting and like, you know, talking about like trade overall. Like, you know, that was the first one
[17:22] of the first use cases we worked for, you know, back a decade ago at R3. And we had Contour, well, we had WeTrade, we had There's so many of these different like trade consortiums that I've lived through and seen evolve. Um and ultimately failed for multiple different reasons. You know, some was, you know, there was, you know, if I think of, you know, the ownership of it, you know, where one shipping company had a large percentage of the ownership where the other ones even with SHA-256 didn't feel comfortable putting all their data out there, right? They were
[17:52] like, they're not, you know, then I think back to the Contour and there was other problems that were out there. The ownership model, non-for-profit versus profit, there was, you know, worries about the data, there was It was multiple different contracts. It is a huge pain point in the industry and I think it's, you know, still ripe for destruction, but even like wet signatures pre-COVID, that was a requirement. So, regardless how innovative this technology is and programmable in solving, you know, paying multiple different entities at once, if it still requires you to go back to a wet signature, not really adding that much efficiency.
[18:22] And there's been multiple changes in law and legislation that we've seen, but it was been an interesting journey in this space. >> It's super interesting. I was for my sins involved in some of those as well in a in a past life, Ryan. And if you've never worked in trade finance, it is astonishing how much paper there is. I I saw one study that I think my my alma mater Barclays did that estimated that if you could just remove the paper, you'd save around 40 billion a year from the industry just in paper DHL costs.
[18:53] Like, it's insane. There were entire floors of the building I worked in that were just like big filing crank filing cabinets for the paper. So, there's the problem space, it's huge, but it's a network effects problem. So, kind of interesting. Tether's got this bottom-up adoption, but it's obviously the large banks that have the largest commodities providers in the world and they'll be looking to you guys for for help. Um you've also said quite been quite direct that nobody even wants just a city token necessarily. Your clients manage
[19:23] hundreds, sometimes thousands of bank accounts globally. Dare I say it, not always just with Citi, right? Like for the complex ones. Um so they need a multi-bank, multi-asset, multi-border connectivity. How How important to you is >> [snorts] >> things like interoperability and you know, how how do you think about partners who think about that problem, too? >> Yeah, it's it's really important. Like I've definitely been vocal. Like we wouldn't needed a blockchain if we weren't intending to connect externally and have kind of a multi-bank strategy, right? And you know, we're part of
[19:53] several of these different consortiums out there to understand how interoperability works. We're also connecting into internal solutions. So we're a corresponding bank for 1,500 um different banks. Of that, 300 and plus are on a solution called 24/7 USD clearing. So they have 24/7 USD clearing. So we're integrating Citi token service into that to now give, you know, our clients access to 300 plus banks. But we're not stopping there. Like we're definitely we're working with several of these consortiums, as I
[20:23] mentioned, to help design and build for interoperability for the future. Like you know, clients do want they want multi-bank. They don't want to and I we recognize that, right? They have hundreds, if not thousands, of bank accounts. How do they have one purview of what their current treasury position is across glo- globally across all banks and like how do we work towards that? Also, like multi-asset. Like this technology allows you to go from, you know, cash into assets DVP atomic settlement instantly. How do we provide interoperability with traditional assets and new assets, but across a global
[20:54] ecosystem? So working with, you know, several entities on that as well. But I will say like, Simon, it's definitely a focus of ours and you know, there's several companies out there developing different standards, different, you know, and you know, it's very reminiscent of to what we tried to do at R3 back in 2016-17 with different banks, different entities, standards, global networks, um bringing all the entities together. Um so, I definitely have probably more war wounds on what not to do than to do with these, but definitely have a lot of experience and but continue to focus on
[21:25] that multi-network aspect of it. >> But, I I really want to poke on this because I think that again, I have I've been in the space for probably about 10 years in the blockchain space. I've seen a lot of, you know, groups of companies come together and say, "Oh, from now on, here's a new standard or, you know, here's a new token of sorts or whatever." And I can't say a lot of those have played out well. And I'm not trying to say anything about the recent ones. I think, you know, everything that came
[21:55] out over the last several weeks is is pretty much amazing, but I want to ask you, Ryan, cuz you you you've you've seen this happen around money movement about new rails that came to be. Do you have like a theory of how would a good solution for all this fragmentation could look like? >> Yeah. I have a joke. I'm like, "I've seen this movie and I know how it ends." But, like, you know, because it's it's played out so many different ways. And, you know, I can tell the I can tell you the structures that have failed in the past. Like, you know, I mentioned where,
[22:26] you know, it was one entity that had a large ownership of it. Others did not feel comfortable joining, right? Like, it has to be built for the industry by the industry. Like, we City could never own the network. Like, our peers would not join that. And we fully recognize that, right? We can contribute to the standards, we can contribute to the openness, we can contribute, but we can't own the network. And like, that has to be the same here. So, it's like you've seen like the for-profit versus non-for-profit. I watched that kind of evolve within like even going back to insurance with B3i versus, you know,
[22:57] kind of what the institute was doing where one was built by the industry, where one was for-profit, and they you know who was included who was not included. So it's it's really interesting now to watch how these different entities are taking slightly different approaches um but you know in general trying to develop standards. You know, I would say that some of the mistakes that we made at R3 um you know Corda network for instance where you know we had multiple different versions
[23:27] of Corda because we could not get all the banks to do you know a outage at the exact same time to push out updates of the next like you know roll out we ended up not having backward compatibility because people were running on different versions of Corda. So it's like it became a it did it became really really difficult to manage and like that whole interoperability that we are building for wasn't there. Right? And then like certain versions weren't even like able to be you know compatible with the the new version. So it is a definitely a challenging I would
[23:58] say area to develop and definitely needed. Like every it is you know the amount of networks I get approached by and I can imagine others out there it's like definitely the name of the game right now. I joke I'm like if we had a dollar for every network approached us I'm like we could retire. You know, because there's so many different but it's such a key part of this technology and they're going to be really scalable but like again going back to ones that are built for the industry by the industry industry we've seen time after time if it's Swift is it TCH is like these are the ones that truly scale in
[24:28] this space right? So it'll be interesting to see how this evolves. >> Yeah, there was a lot of negativity around certain large consortia in the recent press for some of their own self-inflicted reasons frankly but I did exactly the same thing in my newsletter I said what about early warning services? Zelle is the most popular and most used peer-to-peer money transfer service in the United States and it's going global and it happens to be doing so using a stable coin and there's a largely bank ownership thing. The thing I wonder as
[24:59] an observer, of course, and and putting a hope into the wind here is that we can find a way in which banks and non-banks, because I think this technology does span both of those, can find an ownership structure that starts to fit and that we can be inclusive in that process. And speaking of being inclusive in that process, I have to include our sponsors. So, we're just going to take a quick break here while we hear from them. Tokenized is also sponsored by Fireblocks. Fireblocks is the stablecoin infrastructure of choice for global businesses from Visa to WorldPay to
[25:30] Bridge to Revolut. With over a hundred billion dollars in monthly stablecoin volume, Fireblocks powers stablecoin strategies at scale with infrastructure that enables PSPs, fintechs, remitters, and banks to issue, move, hold, and manage stablecoins. It's all done securely at scale with secure built-in compliance. With Fireblocks, you get complete control to build your own stablecoin orchestration layer, create payment accounts, manage liquidity, and access
[26:02] on and off ramps in over 60 currencies. Makes it easier for you to build and scale and expand your business globally. Learn more at fireblocks.com. Alrighty, thank you so much to our sponsors. We really appreciate you and we really appreciate Ryan being with us. Um and of course, Ryan, at Citi, you have a heck of a research team. I know Ronit and the GPS team really well. Uh the stablecoin 2030 report you actually co-authored projected stablecoin circulation could reach 1.9 trillion
[26:33] dollars under a base case by 2030 and 4 trillion in a bull scenario. But it also argues that tokenized bank deposits could ultimately represent greater transaction volume. So, walk us through that thesis and this like coexistence that you see sort of emerging in that report. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, with tokenized deposits again for kind of the reasons I noted earlier, like it's completely integrated into our client solution and almost invisible to the invisible to them. It's just a 24/7 option if and
[27:03] when they want to use it for from a reporting from a, you know, everything is synonymous to what they know today. So, you know, this time last year we were processing millions, now we're processing billions. So, we are seeing really good growth across the ecosystem and that that said with stable coins, like we do see that, you know, there are some use cases that clients want to be able to use them and you know, we want to support that. So, we'll continue to you know, build partnerships like we did with Coinbase to be able to do pay-ins and pay-outs. We'll do that with others.
[27:34] We're building out our custody solution that if and when clients want to be able to, you know, buy and hold them. Uh it's just an alternative set of rails, Simon. It's that you know, we don't think that clients if clients want to use it, we want to be able to provide it. Like we're not selling stable coins, we're not selling tokenized deposits. Again, if this truly gets integrated, it'll just be behind the scenes for the frictionless movement of fiat and value across the globe. And I think that there's a world where tokenized deposits and stable coins can
[28:04] actually, you know, are very like synonymous in the sense that like what we're solving for is that 24/7 movement of cash. Like we all know we're still in a world that people use fiat. So, they're going to convert their stables back into cash and right now there's still friction in that system. So, imagine being able to bring tokenized deposits and stable coins together to be able to have that fungibility between cash and tokens instantly. You know, as I said, we're live in five branches now globally. Like right? So, it's like you want to be able to redeem a stable coin and be into a
[28:34] euro instantaneously. Be able to do that. So, I think there's actually a world that they come closer together. Like where I think the market wants to polarize it one verse the other. That's not how I look at it at all. >> Yeah, and and I think do you actually said that uh you know specifically for 2026 the question is are tokens going to be treated like cash, right? Cuz like blockchain's immutability means you can see the tokens in the entire transaction history. That creates compliance questions that no one has fully resolved, but how many how many hops can
[29:05] can we go back? What defines a clean token? How was city thinking about these problems like internally? What does it mean for clients who just want to move money? Can Can I as your client just look at that as cash? What's the audit for that? I guess the question is when will it become as you said like cash? >> So a tokenized deposit because if you're a KYC AML client of city, you're able to use our platform and move money. And we do all the traditional sanctions, all
[29:36] the traditional checks and balances that you see in our traditional world are done there. I think where it starts to add a little bit more complexity it's like around like stable coins and other assets where you know, if one of our large clients wants to deposit it into the bank, but it was used five hops ago in a solicit you know, in an illicit behavior like who's responsible? Is it like our KYC client? Is it city? Like who's responsible to either like you know, or is it considered after a certain amount of hops it's like you know, it's clean quote unquote. So it's like some of those answers have to be
[30:07] kind of brought to light for like large institutions to feel comfortable taking in those tokens that were potentially used in a sanctioned country or illicit behavior as well as for their partner banks. And like this is not unique. I mean we just have extremely you know, conservative you know, I would say you know, governance that we go by and we'll work we don't ask for forgiveness. So unless it's explicitly clear by our regulators like we're not going to do it. >> Yeah, you're going to wait that out. If completely makes sense as one of the world's largest G-SIBs that you would do that. And I saw
[30:38] you just with the sort of uh, recent moving forward of of clarity. There were some questions from Governor Waller about, you know, the nature of DeFi and unhosted wallets. And so, that is not a solved issue. So, it's extremely difficult to to step into that. And discretion is the better part of valor, as they always say. So, it it completely is is a logical position. I I I'm interested in tokenization more broadly, as well. I mean, it's more than cash. Cash will be tokenized. I fully agree.
[31:08] That's why we launched a show called Tokenized. But, there's also other assets, as well. Uh, you described 2026 as the the foundation is being set for the next decade. Um, that's very patient, number one. And number two, it's like kind of a long horizon, but an important one. You alluded to, you know, sort of where we got to today taking a decade. This is one of the most important industries in the world. Finance, it moves all of the money. But, what does the foundation of this stuff look like when it's done? Like, where are we Where are we
[31:40] heading to technically, regulatory, commercially over the next decade? >> Yeah, I mean, I think the real unlock is when you have true DVP atomic settlement with other assets across the ecosystem. And, you know, we kind of started backwards at R3. We are tokenizing bonds. We're tokenizing equity. We're tokenizing mortgages. Like, you name it, anything under the sun we were tokenizing. But, the problem was there wasn't cash on ledger. You know, until the advent of stablecoins and tokenized deposits and other like you were going
[32:10] back to traditional rails to settle. So, it wasn't truly DVP, right? It was You know, so you still had that latency within the system. So, I think that now you're that you're starting to see quote-unquote cash or cash equivalents scale with with on a blockchain. And now you're starting to see the tokenization of other assets. If it's tokenized money market funds, you're starting to see those scale. You're tokenized CP. And like, the way that I think about it is you're starting to go up the complexity curve. You know, you could argue that cash is one of the most simplistic assets that if you can't tokenize that,
[32:40] how are you going to tokenize other assets? And then, you know, now tokenize money market funds, you see several asset managers out there starting to do that. But like, then you start moving into, you know, when we were trying to solve collateral movement at R3 which Aquilax back in 2016, we didn't have cash on chain. So it didn't It was never It was still inefficient. Where now we have those cash or cash equivalents that are starting to get, you know, I'd say more traction. I think you're going to start to see more of these tokenized assets and efficiency in the system, that latency being removed. That, you
[33:10] know, the future of networks, as you mentioned, is always on, multi-asset, multi-currency, multi-border. Like, you're able to move assets on a 24/7 basis. And like, think about our kids. Like, they've had data at the tips of their fingertips since they were born. Like, they're not going to want to open an account. They're not going to want to wait T+2, T+1. Like, that's not going to be the their their nature. Like, they're going to want instantaneous movement of assets and cash. And like, that's what we're building towards. >> It completely makes sense. I mean, my my big focus at Tempos, you will know Ryan,
[33:40] is to be the best ledger for cash in the world. Because once you've got that, you can build the other assets after it. But without that, you've got nothing. Collateral mobility is nothing if it's cash settled, right? You It's It's the prerequisite. So how do you How do you build that and and where do you get to the next decade? I massively agree on the problem area. Goldie, it's time for the final question. >> I I can't believe that the the story is is about to end like this this flew by so quickly. But but really Ryan, final question and we ask this to all of our guests.
[34:10] Uh and I think you have a unique point of view here. Uh 20 years from now, stablecoins, are they just a story or are they a fact? >> I think if we're successful in this industry and we continue to implement and scale and like, again, I talked about it earlier, obfuscate that complexity of the blockchain, like, we will have real-time value of money, stablecoins, tokenized deposits across the ecosystem that, you know, truly allows for that atomic settlement and DVP and like rewiring the whole financial system.
[34:40] >> Makes complete sense. And that sort of rewiring is what we're all here to do. One tokenized episode at a time, one day of your crazy calendar at a time, Ryan. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to thank everybody for watching and listening wherever they're doing that. Ryan, if people do want to learn more about City Token Services or anything you're doing, how do they get hold of you and City? >> Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. We're very responsive there. We're continuously posting like what we're doing as well as, you know, we have we have a bunch of events coming up where we're going to be talking about
[35:11] new launches. So, hopefully to see everyone there. But, uh I really appreciate the time and having me on. >> Thank you. How about you, Goldy? >> I'm at Ran Goldy on X and Ran Goldy on LinkedIn. And of course, fireblocks.com. >> You'll find me SY Taylor on all of the socials, screaming into the void at fintechbrainfood.com. And of course, at tempo.xyz doing lengthy white papers about off-hours cash settlement using stable coins because that's what I live for, people. And you'll find a lot lot more of this show if you go ahead and
[35:41] subscribe and spam all of your friends to subscribe to because this conversation deserves it, doesn't it? Ryan was an absolute superstar today. And we'll have more episodes coming for you in the not-too-distant future. Take care and bye for now. >> [music]
[0:31] host for today author of fintech brain food and head of market dev at tempo and I'm joined as always by my friend my co-host for this stable coin story series. It's story time once again. It's Ryan Goldie SVP of payments and network at fireblocks. How you doing Goldie? >> I am great. Happy to be here again for another exciting story and and this one is I think this one will surprise a lot of our listeners and viewers. >> Hey, well, just remind everybody what story time is all about. >> Well, as as everyone knows and and if
[1:01] you're listening to our podcast here then you definitely know that the world is now filled with stable coins. There's issuers. There's more and more use cases. There's more I would say consortiums and non-consortiums popping up every day. As you've seen our last episode there's a lot of tectonic shifts, but people want to know what's happening behind the stories that you read on PR behind what you're reading in all in LinkedIn, right? And today we're going to talk about the story of one of the world's largest and I probably most important bank for payments
[1:33] and the world and the bank is is moving into digital asset and that of course is Citibank. Simon, if you want to present our guest. >> Yeah, welcome to the show Ryan Rugg who is global head of digital assets for City Token Services. How you doing Ryan? >> Great Simon. Thanks for having me. >> Well, thank you for being with us. You got one heck of a story. Before we get to that story, I got to remind viewers and listeners that views of our contributors today are their own and might not reflect those of companies they represent. Please don't take anything we say as tax, legal, or
[2:04] financial advice. And reminder number two is this series is brought to you and made possible by our friends at Fireblocks. All right, for those who don't know, I'd love for you to just walk through your career a little bit, Ryan. Um you JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, then you ended up um sort of working in digital assets with IBM and R3. Now at Citi. Is this all Richard Gendel Brown's fault? Like what happens in this story? >> And and and do you you know, do you does your family know that you went from
[2:35] being like an executive director at JP Morgan into uh our space of blockchain? Tell us the truth. >> I'm pretty sure my family still thinks I'm like a stockbroker, which I never was. I just happened to work in markets. My mom's like, "Oh, she's a stockbroker." I'm like, "I'm not a stockbroker." But um you know, it's been it's really interesting. Like, you know, so I was a computer science finance major. I started my career out in tech. But you know, you're 21 years old, you walk into these large institutes. I thought I was going to, you know, rewire, you know, a bank. And I was doing like VLOOKUPs on
[3:05] spreadsheets. And I was like, "This is so boring." Um so I worked my way to the front office and worked in cap markets for 10 years. And and I loved it. And you know, I was doing really innovative structures for clients. But then post-crisis, you know, after Dodd-Frank, a lot of those innovative structures you couldn't do for clients. So I went back to my roots. I started taking, you know, Python classes cuz I had done C++ in college. And it was really fascinating. I was like and I was meeting colleagues that had, you know, I read an article about blockchain in 2015.
[3:36] I was meeting colleagues who hadn't, you know, made the jump over um into various different entities. And I was fascinated. I'm like, "If this technology was around when I started my career, it could completely reinvent all the financial plumbing." So then I went down the rabbit hole. I was meeting you know, at the time, you know, R3 and just more exploratory to understand the technology and what it was and, you know, they offered me a job. And it was one of those things that, you know, I looked around. I didn't want my boss's boss's job. I had been, you know, in capital markets for
[4:06] quite some time and if I didn't make this career pivot, I probably never would. So, I went to work for R3, was employee number 20, like loved it. You know, it was a consortium at the time we were 65 different banks trying to solve a lot of different issues within using blockchain technology. Similar to what's happening now if you think about all the different consortiums that are coming coming out. So, you know, we went from 20 to 450 employees. I got to do everything from help raise a 117 million series A to literally sweeping the
[4:36] floors, you know, at a at a >> [laughter] >> at a at a startup you kind of do it all. Um, but really where I struggled was like the implementation and scaling of this technology. So, you know, IBM approached me about coming to run their, you know, blockchain practice for Americas. I'm like, where I was struggling, you know, we had I had 100 scrum masters, we were a global team, we had, you know, risk compliance, the cloud, all the different facets that where we were kind of, I would say, struggling to like really implement and scale. So, went to work there and it
[5:07] was, you know, great and then that ironic part I was pitching City to hire IBM and they're like, why don't you come run digital assets for us and, you know, I kind of took a pause in my and I thought, you know, I had I had worked for a fintech startup, I had just done a SPAC at that time, you know, I'd worked for a large global system integrator, but I had never been in the seat myself. I had never been actually within in the seat building this technology from the ground up. And that's kind of, you know, what brought me here and brought City Token Services. I really wanted to understand
[5:37] like how these banks like implement and scale technology that could make, you know, very impactful, you know, I would say progress for them. So, that's a nutshell what I've been up to the last, you know, decade in this space, which is I guess makes me one of the OG in here. >> I think I think that that's fascinating, especially because as you said, I mean, R3 is was still is a creation hub in a way. And and IBM is sort of like an implementation hub. And I think it's it's a very different roles. Like in one you ideate, in the
[6:08] second you actually meet, you know, the clients and see what's their pain. I wonder before we move on just like what did you learn at IBM about all the pains clients are having while they're looking at digital assets, all their skepticism, like like what did you take from there about your, you know, view on digital assets? >> Yeah, it was, you know, with having so IBM had acquired a company called Promontory, which was all ex-OCC, FDIC, SEC. So, really I would say the focus
[6:39] on, you know, the importance of risk, compliance, governance was really brought to light for me there. And like, you know, at the time Julian and the team had wrote the speedy agreement for state of Wyoming, which is probably the first legislative piece within digital assets. You know, they had gotten Anchorage or BitLicense. We are working with several other companies who now have, you know, stablecoins out there about their launch. We were working with the large exchanges on implementing, you know, the the importance of transaction due diligence monitoring. Like, you know, so it was a really interesting journey in that. And a lot of the things
[7:10] that I had learned there, I brought here with me, you know, about the risk, the compliance, the safety, the soundness, you know, about how you implement it at scale, how you make sure, you know, from a client side, like the implementation has to be seamless. So, a lot of the even like the architectural decisions we made when designing City Token Service, like we often skip the complexity of a blockchain, right? Where clients use an API or a drop-down box to be able to move money globally. And that was by design. I had the benefit of sitting at IBM and implementing for other banks,
[7:41] right? And seen how their architecture was and understand what worked and what didn't work and what was going to scale. So, coming here, making some clear decisions pretty early on about like even as little as like you don't even have to open a new account to use City Token Service. It's part of like your larger, you know, agreement. We we enable it in the background. Like I believe this technology will be successful where we're not sitting here talking about the technology. Just how we don't talk about cloud. Are you on prem? Are you in in a cloud? Like that's what makes this technology successful. >> I I think that's such a great point. Um
[8:11] people forget that uh compliance is this complete iceberg. You know, like if you're outside of a bank, compliance sounds like, you know, BSA and AML and a bunch of buzzwords and you're going to do KYC and due diligence. But when you're on the inside, it's teams and it's audits and like 50% of it at least is just the record keeping and making sure people are trained. There's so much that goes into it, so much hidden pain. And then that's just for the bank. What about their customer? How are they going to sell this product to their customer?
[8:41] And if you can just make that turnkey, that's a completely different conversation. So, like you were sort of alluding there to when you came in, you sort of did a lot of stuff. So, give me give me the 30,000-foot view. What is the digital asset strategy today at Citibank? >> Yeah. And I wish it was me. Like it would There is a massive team behind like City Token Service and all that we did and it's been incredible working with the team um here at City. And like the strategy I would say overall, you know, the first use case that we went after was
[9:11] liquidity management, right? we had surveyed our top clients about what was their real pain point is, you know, they want to be able to move money regardless of weekends, holidays, if it's 4th of July, it doesn't make a difference. They want to be able to move money globally. So, that's really where we started um and you know, we're live in five branches with two currencies where if it's Saturday, Sunday, you know, Friday 5:00 p.m. and it's 5:00 a.m. in Singapore, clients can now move money. And you're starting to see, you know, the I would say the different use cases and applicability. We thought liquidity
[9:42] management, but now we have like a broker-dealer who's using it when it's like, you know, Chinese New Year in China and like, you know, in um Singapore and the banks close, they can now move money to the US to buy bonds, equities, and margin calls. So, the strategy overall though is build, buy, partner. So, City City City Token Services is an example of what we've been building the last couple years, but we also, you know, we partner, you know, an example of what we're doing with Coinbase Visa out there to be able to do pay-ins and pay-outs with stablecoins. We also, what I say, buy, invest, you know, invested in
[10:13] Finality, we invest in BB&K, and we'll continue with that strategy, you know, it's And again, we're just viewing this as another set of rails that if and when our clients want to use it, they're able to use it, but it has to be fully backward-compatible, interoperable with traditional assets and cash to be scalable otherwise. >> So, when you joined City uh back in in in '22, uh it was already moving $4 trillion a day on traditional rails, right? That's
[10:43] like one of the largest payment flows on Earth. Uh I I mean, again, extraordinary baseline to to be building from, but what was the mandate for digital asset as as you came in? Like, what was the internal conversation like? Was there already a clear strategy uh around, you know, tokenized deposits and versus stablecoins? Or was it still being con- contemplated? >> I mean, City has been within digital assets for over a decade. So, they had been, you know, investing in this technology and setting up the various
[11:14] teams for quite some time prior to me joining. So, there was a really good foundation from, you know, I would say, people working at the firm prior. You know, obviously with this new administration coming in is really what I would say gave digital assets more, I would say, like sunlight, right? Where we had been working behind the scenes for a decade as mentioned. It just wasn't kind of brought to the forefront. But recognizing that we're at, you know, this I would say kind of point in time, right? Where it's not just blockchain.
[11:44] You're seeing AI, you're seeing quantum, you're seeing all these different technologies really come together to change the way that not just financial services, all industries are based. So I think that, you know, a combination of, you know, the foundations the team have been laying for last decade to, you know, what is going on from a regulatory legislative, you know, standpoint had brought more sunlight onto what, you know, Citi was doing, but it wasn't necessarily new. Like, you know, it takes decades and years to build this technology. I mean, to really truly scale it. Like we're fully embedded into
[12:15] our traditional solutions by design. As I mentioned, like I want our clients to have a seamless experience like logging onto Citi Direct, which is our UI, you're able to choose a drop-down box box Citi Token Service or any other type of payment rail. And that's it. And we'll mint the token in one branch, we'll send it to another, we'll burn it as cash for cash in your account. So your reporting, your end of day is synonymous to what they know today. You know, do I think that potentially could change in the future where clients want to hold wallets and manage keys and, yeah, host nodes? Yeah, but that was not
[12:46] my experience at IBM. Clients were not at that maturity level to be able to do that, run that infrastructure themselves. >> Yeah, that I don't know if everybody's fully ready for Tony McLaughlin's vision yet of being, you know, everybody will run run wallets, but I I do think it's a compelling vision, right? You could imagine that instead of having uh 30 different accounts with each bank, I have one wallet and and I can move it 24/7. But the first thing is actually all of my reporting as a big corporate client has to continue to work. And if I can just have that 24/7 thing in
[13:17] multiple currencies, that would be really, really nice. I I'm curious like when did uh you know, you said we mentioned the new administration and um, always seen the passage of the genius act. When did stable coins become a focus and and sort of how much of your time is spent on that versus token services and what talk to me about the portfolio of clients that are asking about it versus, I guess, my assumption would be the larger book that just wants 24/7 cross-border. What What does that look like for you today? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, as you know, we
[13:48] have hundreds of clients on City Token Service, um, but the majority of them are still using it if they misforecast, if they have like unexpected payment like from an M&A activity. It's not the traditional because treasury management systems are not set up all clients for real time. So, take tokens out like they're not set up for real-time kind of management of, um, you know, cash and assets. But, we do have some like large e-commerce platforms on that are, you know, selling goods, you know, all day long sending money back to Asia. We do have some, you
[14:19] know, payment P&I companies using it real time. But, I would still say the majority is not a heavy user. And like I when I think of tokenized deposits, when I think of stable coins, it's just another, you know, payment rail. Like, again, we're going to provide provide both to our clients to enable it. But, the majority of any enterprises that do, for the most part, take in stables, convert it back to fiat immediately. I have I've seen very few clients holding it on their balance sheet right now. And it's just because their infrastructure is not set up for it on their side, um,
[14:50] currently. >> And and I guess talking specifically about clients like you ran this pilot with you know, with ships in the canal ecosystem, uh, letters of credit, fuel payments, smart contracts triggering automatically when the fuel was received. That was That was a very concrete image of like what programmable money might look like in the real world. Can you walk us through what happened there and what's the story there? Because I think that's like one of the most I guess compelling examples of how programmable money could be used.
[15:21] >> Yeah, absolutely. And like was you know, we're really focused on you know, solving client pain points. So you know, a large shipping company and a canal came to us with this pain this pain point of not being able to do you know, move ships through a canal like off hours unless they had letters of credit but you know, then you're constructed to like the banking hours. So we took our tokenized deposit and made it as you said programmable with smart contracts. Like if this happens then do that. In this case it was you know, if the ship received fuel automatically the funds.
[15:51] So instead of having to you know, the very I would say you know, trade has been notorious for being paper and like slow automating that whole entire process just to you know, I would say kind of ease the pain points in the you know, latency within the system. So the programmability aspect of this technology is really powerful, right? It's the mutable record programmability, you know, 24/7 nature of it. Um, so I think those types of use cases will continue to evolve um, as we've kind of start to see more client adoption across
[16:21] the ecosystem. >> I I I I think that over the last probably like two three years we we've seen a lot where stable coins have got to into like you know, various verticals and I think that the B2B commodity trading space was the most receptive one. And not a lot of people know this but even today uh, you know, some companies like even Tether for example are actually working with a lot of those uh, you know, trade
[16:52] companies and uh, in essence providing them credit sometimes or just helping them do the movement of funds because again it's those companies correct me if I'm wrong Ryan that really need to move money as fast as they can so they can actually release their cargo obviously, right? Like you mentioned and cuz otherwise their business their business really depends on the speed of money movement. Did Do that as well from from these types of clients? >> It's really interesting and like, you know, talking about like trade overall. Like, you know, that was the first one
[17:22] of the first use cases we worked for, you know, back a decade ago at R3. And we had Contour, well, we had WeTrade, we had There's so many of these different like trade consortiums that I've lived through and seen evolve. Um and ultimately failed for multiple different reasons. You know, some was, you know, there was, you know, if I think of, you know, the ownership of it, you know, where one shipping company had a large percentage of the ownership where the other ones even with SHA-256 didn't feel comfortable putting all their data out there, right? They were
[17:52] like, they're not, you know, then I think back to the Contour and there was other problems that were out there. The ownership model, non-for-profit versus profit, there was, you know, worries about the data, there was It was multiple different contracts. It is a huge pain point in the industry and I think it's, you know, still ripe for destruction, but even like wet signatures pre-COVID, that was a requirement. So, regardless how innovative this technology is and programmable in solving, you know, paying multiple different entities at once, if it still requires you to go back to a wet signature, not really adding that much efficiency.
[18:22] And there's been multiple changes in law and legislation that we've seen, but it was been an interesting journey in this space. >> It's super interesting. I was for my sins involved in some of those as well in a in a past life, Ryan. And if you've never worked in trade finance, it is astonishing how much paper there is. I I saw one study that I think my my alma mater Barclays did that estimated that if you could just remove the paper, you'd save around 40 billion a year from the industry just in paper DHL costs.
[18:53] Like, it's insane. There were entire floors of the building I worked in that were just like big filing crank filing cabinets for the paper. So, there's the problem space, it's huge, but it's a network effects problem. So, kind of interesting. Tether's got this bottom-up adoption, but it's obviously the large banks that have the largest commodities providers in the world and they'll be looking to you guys for for help. Um you've also said quite been quite direct that nobody even wants just a city token necessarily. Your clients manage
[19:23] hundreds, sometimes thousands of bank accounts globally. Dare I say it, not always just with Citi, right? Like for the complex ones. Um so they need a multi-bank, multi-asset, multi-border connectivity. How How important to you is >> [snorts] >> things like interoperability and you know, how how do you think about partners who think about that problem, too? >> Yeah, it's it's really important. Like I've definitely been vocal. Like we wouldn't needed a blockchain if we weren't intending to connect externally and have kind of a multi-bank strategy, right? And you know, we're part of
[19:53] several of these different consortiums out there to understand how interoperability works. We're also connecting into internal solutions. So we're a corresponding bank for 1,500 um different banks. Of that, 300 and plus are on a solution called 24/7 USD clearing. So they have 24/7 USD clearing. So we're integrating Citi token service into that to now give, you know, our clients access to 300 plus banks. But we're not stopping there. Like we're definitely we're working with several of these consortiums, as I
[20:23] mentioned, to help design and build for interoperability for the future. Like you know, clients do want they want multi-bank. They don't want to and I we recognize that, right? They have hundreds, if not thousands, of bank accounts. How do they have one purview of what their current treasury position is across glo- globally across all banks and like how do we work towards that? Also, like multi-asset. Like this technology allows you to go from, you know, cash into assets DVP atomic settlement instantly. How do we provide interoperability with traditional assets and new assets, but across a global
[20:54] ecosystem? So working with, you know, several entities on that as well. But I will say like, Simon, it's definitely a focus of ours and you know, there's several companies out there developing different standards, different, you know, and you know, it's very reminiscent of to what we tried to do at R3 back in 2016-17 with different banks, different entities, standards, global networks, um bringing all the entities together. Um so, I definitely have probably more war wounds on what not to do than to do with these, but definitely have a lot of experience and but continue to focus on
[21:25] that multi-network aspect of it. >> But, I I really want to poke on this because I think that again, I have I've been in the space for probably about 10 years in the blockchain space. I've seen a lot of, you know, groups of companies come together and say, "Oh, from now on, here's a new standard or, you know, here's a new token of sorts or whatever." And I can't say a lot of those have played out well. And I'm not trying to say anything about the recent ones. I think, you know, everything that came
[21:55] out over the last several weeks is is pretty much amazing, but I want to ask you, Ryan, cuz you you you've you've seen this happen around money movement about new rails that came to be. Do you have like a theory of how would a good solution for all this fragmentation could look like? >> Yeah. I have a joke. I'm like, "I've seen this movie and I know how it ends." But, like, you know, because it's it's played out so many different ways. And, you know, I can tell the I can tell you the structures that have failed in the past. Like, you know, I mentioned where,
[22:26] you know, it was one entity that had a large ownership of it. Others did not feel comfortable joining, right? Like, it has to be built for the industry by the industry. Like, we City could never own the network. Like, our peers would not join that. And we fully recognize that, right? We can contribute to the standards, we can contribute to the openness, we can contribute, but we can't own the network. And like, that has to be the same here. So, it's like you've seen like the for-profit versus non-for-profit. I watched that kind of evolve within like even going back to insurance with B3i versus, you know,
[22:57] kind of what the institute was doing where one was built by the industry, where one was for-profit, and they you know who was included who was not included. So it's it's really interesting now to watch how these different entities are taking slightly different approaches um but you know in general trying to develop standards. You know, I would say that some of the mistakes that we made at R3 um you know Corda network for instance where you know we had multiple different versions
[23:27] of Corda because we could not get all the banks to do you know a outage at the exact same time to push out updates of the next like you know roll out we ended up not having backward compatibility because people were running on different versions of Corda. So it's like it became a it did it became really really difficult to manage and like that whole interoperability that we are building for wasn't there. Right? And then like certain versions weren't even like able to be you know compatible with the the new version. So it is a definitely a challenging I would
[23:58] say area to develop and definitely needed. Like every it is you know the amount of networks I get approached by and I can imagine others out there it's like definitely the name of the game right now. I joke I'm like if we had a dollar for every network approached us I'm like we could retire. You know, because there's so many different but it's such a key part of this technology and they're going to be really scalable but like again going back to ones that are built for the industry by the industry industry we've seen time after time if it's Swift is it TCH is like these are the ones that truly scale in
[24:28] this space right? So it'll be interesting to see how this evolves. >> Yeah, there was a lot of negativity around certain large consortia in the recent press for some of their own self-inflicted reasons frankly but I did exactly the same thing in my newsletter I said what about early warning services? Zelle is the most popular and most used peer-to-peer money transfer service in the United States and it's going global and it happens to be doing so using a stable coin and there's a largely bank ownership thing. The thing I wonder as
[24:59] an observer, of course, and and putting a hope into the wind here is that we can find a way in which banks and non-banks, because I think this technology does span both of those, can find an ownership structure that starts to fit and that we can be inclusive in that process. And speaking of being inclusive in that process, I have to include our sponsors. So, we're just going to take a quick break here while we hear from them. Tokenized is also sponsored by Fireblocks. Fireblocks is the stablecoin infrastructure of choice for global businesses from Visa to WorldPay to
[25:30] Bridge to Revolut. With over a hundred billion dollars in monthly stablecoin volume, Fireblocks powers stablecoin strategies at scale with infrastructure that enables PSPs, fintechs, remitters, and banks to issue, move, hold, and manage stablecoins. It's all done securely at scale with secure built-in compliance. With Fireblocks, you get complete control to build your own stablecoin orchestration layer, create payment accounts, manage liquidity, and access
[26:02] on and off ramps in over 60 currencies. Makes it easier for you to build and scale and expand your business globally. Learn more at fireblocks.com. Alrighty, thank you so much to our sponsors. We really appreciate you and we really appreciate Ryan being with us. Um and of course, Ryan, at Citi, you have a heck of a research team. I know Ronit and the GPS team really well. Uh the stablecoin 2030 report you actually co-authored projected stablecoin circulation could reach 1.9 trillion
[26:33] dollars under a base case by 2030 and 4 trillion in a bull scenario. But it also argues that tokenized bank deposits could ultimately represent greater transaction volume. So, walk us through that thesis and this like coexistence that you see sort of emerging in that report. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, with tokenized deposits again for kind of the reasons I noted earlier, like it's completely integrated into our client solution and almost invisible to the invisible to them. It's just a 24/7 option if and
[27:03] when they want to use it for from a reporting from a, you know, everything is synonymous to what they know today. So, you know, this time last year we were processing millions, now we're processing billions. So, we are seeing really good growth across the ecosystem and that that said with stable coins, like we do see that, you know, there are some use cases that clients want to be able to use them and you know, we want to support that. So, we'll continue to you know, build partnerships like we did with Coinbase to be able to do pay-ins and pay-outs. We'll do that with others.
[27:34] We're building out our custody solution that if and when clients want to be able to, you know, buy and hold them. Uh it's just an alternative set of rails, Simon. It's that you know, we don't think that clients if clients want to use it, we want to be able to provide it. Like we're not selling stable coins, we're not selling tokenized deposits. Again, if this truly gets integrated, it'll just be behind the scenes for the frictionless movement of fiat and value across the globe. And I think that there's a world where tokenized deposits and stable coins can
[28:04] actually, you know, are very like synonymous in the sense that like what we're solving for is that 24/7 movement of cash. Like we all know we're still in a world that people use fiat. So, they're going to convert their stables back into cash and right now there's still friction in that system. So, imagine being able to bring tokenized deposits and stable coins together to be able to have that fungibility between cash and tokens instantly. You know, as I said, we're live in five branches now globally. Like right? So, it's like you want to be able to redeem a stable coin and be into a
[28:34] euro instantaneously. Be able to do that. So, I think there's actually a world that they come closer together. Like where I think the market wants to polarize it one verse the other. That's not how I look at it at all. >> Yeah, and and I think do you actually said that uh you know specifically for 2026 the question is are tokens going to be treated like cash, right? Cuz like blockchain's immutability means you can see the tokens in the entire transaction history. That creates compliance questions that no one has fully resolved, but how many how many hops can
[29:05] can we go back? What defines a clean token? How was city thinking about these problems like internally? What does it mean for clients who just want to move money? Can Can I as your client just look at that as cash? What's the audit for that? I guess the question is when will it become as you said like cash? >> So a tokenized deposit because if you're a KYC AML client of city, you're able to use our platform and move money. And we do all the traditional sanctions, all
[29:36] the traditional checks and balances that you see in our traditional world are done there. I think where it starts to add a little bit more complexity it's like around like stable coins and other assets where you know, if one of our large clients wants to deposit it into the bank, but it was used five hops ago in a solicit you know, in an illicit behavior like who's responsible? Is it like our KYC client? Is it city? Like who's responsible to either like you know, or is it considered after a certain amount of hops it's like you know, it's clean quote unquote. So it's like some of those answers have to be
[30:07] kind of brought to light for like large institutions to feel comfortable taking in those tokens that were potentially used in a sanctioned country or illicit behavior as well as for their partner banks. And like this is not unique. I mean we just have extremely you know, conservative you know, I would say you know, governance that we go by and we'll work we don't ask for forgiveness. So unless it's explicitly clear by our regulators like we're not going to do it. >> Yeah, you're going to wait that out. If completely makes sense as one of the world's largest G-SIBs that you would do that. And I saw
[30:38] you just with the sort of uh, recent moving forward of of clarity. There were some questions from Governor Waller about, you know, the nature of DeFi and unhosted wallets. And so, that is not a solved issue. So, it's extremely difficult to to step into that. And discretion is the better part of valor, as they always say. So, it it completely is is a logical position. I I I'm interested in tokenization more broadly, as well. I mean, it's more than cash. Cash will be tokenized. I fully agree.
[31:08] That's why we launched a show called Tokenized. But, there's also other assets, as well. Uh, you described 2026 as the the foundation is being set for the next decade. Um, that's very patient, number one. And number two, it's like kind of a long horizon, but an important one. You alluded to, you know, sort of where we got to today taking a decade. This is one of the most important industries in the world. Finance, it moves all of the money. But, what does the foundation of this stuff look like when it's done? Like, where are we Where are we
[31:40] heading to technically, regulatory, commercially over the next decade? >> Yeah, I mean, I think the real unlock is when you have true DVP atomic settlement with other assets across the ecosystem. And, you know, we kind of started backwards at R3. We are tokenizing bonds. We're tokenizing equity. We're tokenizing mortgages. Like, you name it, anything under the sun we were tokenizing. But, the problem was there wasn't cash on ledger. You know, until the advent of stablecoins and tokenized deposits and other like you were going
[32:10] back to traditional rails to settle. So, it wasn't truly DVP, right? It was You know, so you still had that latency within the system. So, I think that now you're that you're starting to see quote-unquote cash or cash equivalents scale with with on a blockchain. And now you're starting to see the tokenization of other assets. If it's tokenized money market funds, you're starting to see those scale. You're tokenized CP. And like, the way that I think about it is you're starting to go up the complexity curve. You know, you could argue that cash is one of the most simplistic assets that if you can't tokenize that,
[32:40] how are you going to tokenize other assets? And then, you know, now tokenize money market funds, you see several asset managers out there starting to do that. But like, then you start moving into, you know, when we were trying to solve collateral movement at R3 which Aquilax back in 2016, we didn't have cash on chain. So it didn't It was never It was still inefficient. Where now we have those cash or cash equivalents that are starting to get, you know, I'd say more traction. I think you're going to start to see more of these tokenized assets and efficiency in the system, that latency being removed. That, you
[33:10] know, the future of networks, as you mentioned, is always on, multi-asset, multi-currency, multi-border. Like, you're able to move assets on a 24/7 basis. And like, think about our kids. Like, they've had data at the tips of their fingertips since they were born. Like, they're not going to want to open an account. They're not going to want to wait T+2, T+1. Like, that's not going to be the their their nature. Like, they're going to want instantaneous movement of assets and cash. And like, that's what we're building towards. >> It completely makes sense. I mean, my my big focus at Tempos, you will know Ryan,
[33:40] is to be the best ledger for cash in the world. Because once you've got that, you can build the other assets after it. But without that, you've got nothing. Collateral mobility is nothing if it's cash settled, right? You It's It's the prerequisite. So how do you How do you build that and and where do you get to the next decade? I massively agree on the problem area. Goldie, it's time for the final question. >> I I can't believe that the the story is is about to end like this this flew by so quickly. But but really Ryan, final question and we ask this to all of our guests.
[34:10] Uh and I think you have a unique point of view here. Uh 20 years from now, stablecoins, are they just a story or are they a fact? >> I think if we're successful in this industry and we continue to implement and scale and like, again, I talked about it earlier, obfuscate that complexity of the blockchain, like, we will have real-time value of money, stablecoins, tokenized deposits across the ecosystem that, you know, truly allows for that atomic settlement and DVP and like rewiring the whole financial system.
[34:40] >> Makes complete sense. And that sort of rewiring is what we're all here to do. One tokenized episode at a time, one day of your crazy calendar at a time, Ryan. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to thank everybody for watching and listening wherever they're doing that. Ryan, if people do want to learn more about City Token Services or anything you're doing, how do they get hold of you and City? >> Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. We're very responsive there. We're continuously posting like what we're doing as well as, you know, we have we have a bunch of events coming up where we're going to be talking about
[35:11] new launches. So, hopefully to see everyone there. But, uh I really appreciate the time and having me on. >> Thank you. How about you, Goldy? >> I'm at Ran Goldy on X and Ran Goldy on LinkedIn. And of course, fireblocks.com. >> You'll find me SY Taylor on all of the socials, screaming into the void at fintechbrainfood.com. And of course, at tempo.xyz doing lengthy white papers about off-hours cash settlement using stable coins because that's what I live for, people. And you'll find a lot lot more of this show if you go ahead and
[35:41] subscribe and spam all of your friends to subscribe to because this conversation deserves it, doesn't it? Ryan was an absolute superstar today. And we'll have more episodes coming for you in the not-too-distant future. Take care and bye for now. >> [music]