Citigroup Digital Assets Exec Leaves for New Crypto Challenge

Citigroup’s digital assets head for its markets unit, Shobhit Maini, is departing after a 14-year tenure.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that Maini is leaving to explore new opportunities in the crypto industry. According to his LinkedIn, he recently led the digital assets team within the markets division and previously served as a director in the markets and securities services transformation unit.

A memo from Citigroup’s head of markets innovation, Lee Smallwood, revealed that Maini is moving on to “an entrepreneurial opportunity in the digital asset space.”

Citigroup has appointed Deepak Mehra, who oversees strategic investments for the markets division, to expand his responsibilities to lead the digital assets team.

Citigroup and Maini didn’t return Cryptonews’ request for comment by press time.

Maini has previously said digital assets in the future won’t involve completely replacing traditional financial systems. Instead, they will involve developing parallel infrastructures that coexist. He also highlighted that a key challenge driving the industry is achieving interoperability among blockchain-based systems.

Citigroup Advances Tokenization and Digital Assets Custody

The bank is involved in several digital money and tokenization initiatives. Last year, it became the first digital custodian participant in the BondbloX Bond Exchange (BBX). BBX, launched in 2020, is the world’s first fractional bond exchange designed to simplify bond investing.

Additionally, the bank introduced a new token service, aiming to leverage distributed ledger technology to enhance product offerings. The Citi Token Services, designed for institutional clients, transforms customer deposits into digital tokens that can be instantly transferred globally.