Scaling the Next Era of On-Chain Finance: Operational Rigor, Regulatory Alignment, and Secure Custody

In the race to institutionalize on-chain finance, infrastructure will determine who wins. Few executives understand that reality better than Jody Mettler, COO of BitGo and President of BitGo Trust Company. A longtime banking executive with more than two decades at Citigroup, Mettler brings a rare combination of deep operational expertise, regulatory fluency, and institutional risk discipline to the digital-asset ecosystem.

Under her leadership, BitGo has helped pioneer the regulated infrastructure required for institutional participation. The firm’s trust entity received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a federally chartered digital-asset bank in 2025—an important step in bridging traditional finance and blockchain markets. In this fireside chat, Mettler will discuss how institutional-grade custody, settlement, staking, and financing infrastructure are reshaping market structure in digital assets—and why operational rigor, regulatory alignment, and secure custody may ultimately become the foundation for scaling the next era of on-chain finance.

The Battle for the Deposit Franchise: Are Stablecoins or Tokenized Deposits the Future?

As digital money moves from experimentation to execution, traditional financial institutions face a critical strategic decision: pursue a stablecoin strategy, tokenized bank deposits, or attempt both? Each path carries profound implications for balance sheets, regulation, payments infrastructure, customer relationships and long-term competitiveness.

Citi’s Artem Korenyuk, Managing Director, Digital Assets, shares his perspective on whether stablecoins or tokenized deposits represent the most viable—and defensible—path forward for TradFi. The conversation will examine where real economic value is being created, how regulators and supervisors are shaping outcomes, and what decisions bank executives must make in the next 12–24 months to remain relevant in a tokenized financial system. The discussion will include a dive into:

• Are stablecoins and tokenized deposits truly alternatives—or stepping stones toward the same end state?
• Stablecoins vs. tokenized deposits: core differences on issuer model, customer trust and brand risk, control vs. reach, and Interoperability.

• Regulatory and balance sheet implications—and which path aligns more naturally with the current regulatory perimeter and which is more future-proof if regulation shifts?
• Creating value: payments, treasury, and liquidity use cases.
• Operating model and technology trade-offs.
• Developing an ecosystem strategy—go it alone or join a network?
• Nonbank stablecoin adoption in emerging markets.
• The risk of deposits migrating off bank balance sheets.

Getting There First, Going Fast and Playing the Long Digital-Asset Game

There are no barriers to entry when it comes to launching an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The hard part, though, is building and growing a successful ETF. Peter Mintzberg, CEO of crypto asset manager Grayscale, is well acquainted with the challenges of the crypto market and how it figures—mightily—in the traditional world of asset management. His aggressive moves to position the firm early in digital assets is paying off: Grayscale manages a diverse, multi-billion dollar portfolio including Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), Ethereum trusts, and a list of 27 potential new digital assets for future products, including DeFi and AI tokens. And Grayscale is just getting started.

Rewiring Finance: Modernizing Market Infrastructure for an On-Chain Future

Global financial markets are undergoing a foundational transformation. Legacy systems built decades ago are being challenged by new technologies—from distributed ledgers and real-time settlement rails to AI-powered risk management and tokenized assets. Market participants, regulators, and infrastructure providers now face a shared imperative: how to modernize safely, efficiently, and collaboratively.

This one-on-one interview will explore how market infrastructure is evolving, and what modernization really means for liquidity, efficiency, and resiliency, including:

• Integrating modern infrastructure—DLT, cloud, and digital assets—into existing market systems.
• Balancing innovation with regulatory and operational risk management.
• The future of settlement, clearing, and custody in a tokenized economy.
• Public-private collaboration: how institutions and regulators can shape the new financial rails.
• The business case for modernization: efficiency gains, transparency, and access.

Banking on the Institutional Digital-Asset Trading Build

The former “build it” guy at J.P. Morgan and Barclays, who spent years building and selling products in options and credit derivatives, commodities, and sales and trading, is now building a platform for institutional trading of digital assets, drawing on all the lessons he learned in traditional markets—but created to power the digital-asset economy.