Building Crypto Infrastructure: Insights from Consensus Miami | "What The Fraud?" Podcast

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Welcome to What The Fraud? Podcast by Sumsub, where we go behind the headlines to understand how fraud actually works and who is fighting it. I'm Anastasia, Sales Director at Sumsub, and for this special episode, we're coming to you straight from the Sumsub booth here at Consensus Miami. Throughout the day, we sat down with leaders from Fireblocks, Citi, Kite AI, AMINA Bank, Polygon, and Kraken—the people building, scaling, and securing the future of digital finance. We talked about what's actually happening behind the scenes, from institutional adoption and tokenization to AI-driven systems and the shift in the nature of risk. So let's get into it.

Adam Levine, Fireblocks Trust Company

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: When people talk about crypto adoption, they often focus on markets, prices, or regulation. But for institutions, the real question is much more fundamental. Can they actually operate in this space safely? That's where infrastructure comes in: custody, workflows, and the systems that sit underneath everything. I'm joined by Adam Levine, CEO of Fireblocks Trust Company. Adam, welcome.

ADAM LEVINE: Thank you. Really excited to be here.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: How is Consensus for you?

ADAM LEVINE: It's good. Definitely feeling the energy. The market is here. It's gonna be a busy few days.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: It definitely is gonna be a busy few days. Let's start by talking about Fireblocks and the company. Obviously, the brand is big, but you're helping institutions actually operate in digital assets. What does that look like in practice?

ADAM LEVINE: Look, our mission's to bring digital assets to businesses everywhere, and we do that primarily as infrastructure. The operating system that lets clients pick their journey about what they wanna do with digital assets. That could be a pure crypto play and trading, or it could focus on payments, stablecoins, custody, tokenization, and much more. But it all really starts with having the highest level of security. There are a lot of wonderful things that digital assets can do, but if you can't hold the assets safely or operate at scale safely, as enterprises demand, then it really doesn't matter. And that's where Fireblocks focuses: ensuring we mitigate all those risks and give them the business opportunities to continue their strategy.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: That is great. You talked about security and safety, and most people think about crypto risk as a market risk. Prices go up, prices go down. But you're dealing with a probably different kind of risk. What does that look like?

ADAM LEVINE: So from Fireblocks' perspective, we obviously want to see bull markets in general, but we're not focused on the valuation of any digital asset. It's really all the other risks we focus on.

Every time there's a hack in the industry, it's bad for the entire industry.

Fireblocks is working, as a leader, to provide the highest levels of security. We think about not just cyber-related risks, but also operational risk, operational efficiencies, and helping clients increasingly have the tools they need to navigate their own local regulatory requirements. We're not the ones who are gonna advise them on regulation, but we give them the technology and the tools to help them, the best we can. And that's really fundamental when you're working with a global client base.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Definitely, building this trust is very, very important. What do you think is the biggest blocker in the industry right now? Is it a regulation? Is it infrastructure or internal risk appetite, maybe?

ADAM LEVINE: Personally, my view is that it's risk appetite. There are regulatory risks in certain markets and in certain activities. There are important cyber risks.

But having the risk appetite to do something new and innovative is where we've seen the market leaders. Those who have taken action in the last two, three, or four years are the ones who are proving out the model now. Now look, once they get the consensus from their executive team or board that they're going to take action, they obviously need to think about things like regulation and cybersecurity, and have a really clear strategy for what they wanna do.

Increasingly, we're seeing clients are more likely to come and say, "Look, I wanna make a focus on payments and stablecoins. I have a good idea on tokenization." It's a lot less about the conversation of "Hey, I need to do something with crypto. What do I do?" so the conversation's getting a lot smarter, which means clients are often coming to us with at least a vision. They may not fully understand all the fundamentals; that's where we can guide them. But having that strategy with the risk appetite of doing something different, putting some investment capital for the companies at stake, to continue to be a market leader, and in some cases now they're playing catch-up, that's the biggest thing that determines success.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Definitely. You know, I see that you guys can guide companies to kind of become, you know, better. Everyone talks about tokenization as getting assets onto blockchain, but what's actually harder? Creating those assets or getting investors to adopt them?

ADAM LEVINE: Yeah. So, the good news is that the limitation isn't about how to tokenize. There are plenty of companies, including Fireblocks, that can tokenize everything from vanilla bonds and stablecoins to really complicated structured products. We have some clients who wanna tokenize investment-grade wine and resources. The technology is there for that. But that makes for a really good press release, and in some cases, just a mediocre press release. You've said you've tokenized something. The idea is adoption. The new term everyone is now focused on is distribution, and what that really means is that you have an investor base that knows how to access the assets, knows where to access them in a way that's compliant with regulatory requirements, and that they have to have demand.

And so, increasingly, we're seeing not just in emerging markets, but plenty of press releases about financial market infrastructures tokenizing. Where we're seeing even earlier adoption is in emerging markets, where these are investor bases that want access to assets that those of us in the US, UK, or Singapore have, while emerging markets may not.

Tokenizing is one way by which they may gain access to assets in those traditional, more developed markets much more quickly. So that's leading the innovation, but it's really about having a successful loop. The industry needs to move past just the press release and figure out the right way to get distribution. That's what everyone's focused on.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: And in those developing markets, I assume there is even higher risk in general. Do you think better infrastructure actually reduces fraud risk, or just shifts where the vulnerability sits?

ADAM LEVINE: Fraud is critical. Having really good technology to hold your digital assets doesn't necessarily address the fraud issue. And that's where people are also very focused. As you're working with regulated institutions, they're thinking about cybersecurity, but they're thinking about compliance requirements. They're thinking about AML and KYT. They're thinking about fraud.

The last thing they want to do is spend a lot of their resources on something innovative and then be on the front page of a local paper or website because they've been caught by fraud.

So it's critical. It has to go hand in hand. It has to complement. You can't choose between mitigating cyber risk and mitigating fraud. You need a solution for both.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: And I guess the last question that I have for you is: As stablecoins—because everybody talks about stablecoins, obviously—and on-chain payments scale, how does custody evolve, and what new kinds of risks come with that?

ADAM LEVINE: Sure. When we think about payments, there are different ways that people think of custody. There are some institutions that want to maintain their balance sheet in a stable state, or at a percentage of that. And those stables may be at rest for a while, and increasingly, those clients that have adopted stables and are excited about it wanna know how they can get yield, some sort of return for a version of their fiat that's at rest in a stablecoin. So having custody solutions that can provide some version of yields—whether it's accessing DeFi vaults or converting to money market funds in and out throughout the day, it's gonna be critical. The other part is that you also see more licensed service providers that can hold stablecoins for them and make payments, and often people think of that as custody. But it's really a licensed third party that is touching the stablecoins for them and can do that. We're increasingly seeing clients who have the vision and take on the long-term risk. But in the short term, they're saying, "Hey, we need to outsource this to a licensed, regulated institution that can do that, and learn from the process until they're ready to do it themself."

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Thank you very much, Adam, for this conversation. Thank you for stopping by, and enjoy Miami. Enjoy Consensus.

ADAM LEVINE: Thank you so much. Always great working with a great partner like Sumsub.

Ryan Rugg, Citi

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Most people think of Citi as a bank, but increasingly it's also become an infrastructure, figuring out how to move money across borders faster, cheaper, and more transparently using blockchain. The question is whether the traditional financial system can actually adapt or just bolt new technology onto old infrastructure. I'm joined here by Ryan Rugg, Global Head of Digital Assets, Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi. Ryan, welcome.

RYAN RUGG: Thanks for having me.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: How is Miami? How is Consensus?

RYAN RUGG: You know, always super busy, but it's been wonderful. What about you?

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: It's fun. You know, we have all different meetings and drinks, but, you know, it's Miami.

RYAN RUGG: I love that it's not just fintechs. Having come to this conference for many years, you're now seeing enterprises and institutions here as well, which is a nice change.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: And it's great to see Citi here as well. Absolutely. And you guys are building infrastructure for moving money on-chain. What problem are you actually solving for clients?

RYAN RUGG: Three years ago, we started building what's now called Citi Token Service. We did a survey of our largest, you know, clients and asked what their real pain point was, and it came back that they wanted 24/7/365 frictionless movement of money across the globe, regardless of weekends or holidays. So at that point, we surveyed a bunch of different technologies out there, and we ended up on a blockchain because we truly believe the future is about interoperability, and it's gonna be multi-bank, and it's gonna be, you know, multi-currency, cross-border, all those. So that's why we, you know, chose a private, permissioned version of Ethereum for scalability and future interoperability, to give our clients that multi-bank perspective.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Definitely. It's such a pain to move money sometimes, and, you said weekends and holidays and whatnot, so. But what's the hardest part of making this work at scale? Technology, regulation, or maybe getting institutions comfortable enough to actually adopt it?

RYAN RUGG: That's a great question. So I think in the past, you know, I worked at a fintech startup, I worked at IBM prior to joining Citi, and when we were building digital ad solutions, we were building them in a silo. What do I mean? They weren't fully integrated into traditional enterprise and corporate systems, such as treasury management and ERP systems. So they almost had to use a separate system to manage their tokens and digital assets. So, from a technology standpoint, Citi Token Service is fully embedded in their traditional infrastructure. So Citi Token Service is literally a dropdown box in what we call Citi Direct, our UI, and clients say, "I wanna move money. It's 5:00 PM on Friday. It's 5:00 AM in Singapore. I wanna move, whatever, $10 million." They're able to move them into a token in New York. We'll send it to Singapore. It's still automatic. So it's completely embedded, and cash is then deposited into their account.

So for reporting and governance, everything is what they're traditionally used to because, you know, I've had conversations with some of our corporates, like, even adding additional currencies, take-out tokens to their ERP systems, is complex and could take time. So now imagine the complexity of adding to it, with digital assets, that we want this just to be another set of rails that, if and when our clients want to use it, is a tool in the toolkit for them to use.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: I can imagine how enterprise clients just want the smooth experience, 'cause everything is very complex at that scale. And as more value moves on-chain, what new risks or misuse are emerging that people aren't paying enough attention to?

RYAN RUGG: Within Citi Token Service, all the traditional KYC, AML, BSA checks and balances that we do in our traditional business, we do with Citi Token Service, but even with enhanced scrutiny.
Because that is the safety and soundness of our business, it is extremely important for our clients. We move trillions of dollars a day for large multinationals, and, like, just because this is a new set of rails, we take the same amount of scrutiny that we take with our traditional business in that.

Because when you think of, you know, the public chains and what's happening, like the recent hacks and money being… That's not something that, you know, we take the safety and soundness very seriously for our clients. When you start thinking public, you're moving from a network that, you know, has end-of-day, has closures, has batch settlement to a network that is 24/7/365. So on-chain analytics is extremely important when clients start thinking about public chains. And then also, you know, it's not just KYC; it's like KYT—Know Your Token. Has your token been used in illicit behavior? Has your token been used in a sanctioned country? So there's a lot of additional, I would say, risk, compliance, and analysis required when clients are looking to go on public chains.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: That's great that even though the clients get a faster system, they still get the same level of security, which I think, and again, for multinationals, it's the number one factor probably. And as digital assets become more embedded in global finance, what can institutions like Citi actually contribute to making that ecosystem more secure?

RYAN RUGG: It's a multifaceted answer. In the traditional business cash management is a huge focus for our large corporates. We're in 90-plus branches. Right now, Citi Token Service is live in five cities, so you can move money between New York, Dublin, UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong instantaneously, 24/7.
But also think about the custody aspect of it.

We announced last year that we're building out custody services as well. Ultimately, we want these new digital asset rails and infrastructure to run alongside our clients' traditional business operations.

So, if clients want to use tokenized RWAs or invest in the underlying bonds and equities, they have that optionality. They don't have to choose one or the other—they can do either, or both. Having the infrastructure in one place is also important. We've heard clients say time and time again, "I don't want to manage risk across multiple locations. I don't want one custody provider for my digital assets, where I have to handle risk management and analytics, and then have my traditional business somewhere else. I want it all in one place."

Really listening to our clients' needs is a huge focus for us, as is building the infrastructure of the future.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: That sounds amazing. Thank you very much, Ryan, for this conversation. Enjoy Miami. Enjoy Consensus. We'll see you around.

RYAN RUGG: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Myles Harrison, AMINA Bank

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: There is a version of crypto banking that's fully regulated, fully licensed, and designed to feel like a normal bank account, just with digital assets underneath. AMINA Bank is trying to build exactly that. The question is how far this model can scale, both from a customer adoption and regulatory perspective. With me today is Myles Harrison, Chief Product Officer at AMINA Bank. Myles, welcome.

MYLES HARRISON: Thank you. Thanks for having me today.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Happy to have you here. How is Miami going for you?

MYLES HARRISON: Great so far. The weather yesterday was a little hit-or-miss, as you saw, but today the sun is shining, and it's a great first day here at Consensus.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Very busy. Great. You know what? I wanted to first start talking about AMINA. So AMINA sits at the intersection of traditional banking and digital assets. But what does that actually mean for customers in practice?

MYLES HARRISON: For our customers, it means that they get access to a wide range of products and services that cut across what we would call TradFi, so more on the fiat side, and then also crypto. So everything from crypto custody and trading to crypto-collateralized lending. And that's all within the trust, safety, and security that a traditional bank provides.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: That's great. I love that you touched on the security part of it, because that's also something we're talking about today with a lot of different people. When markets are quieter, what are serious institutions actually doing behind the scenes? And what does that tell us about where this all is heading?

MYLES HARRISON: I'll whisper it a little bit here, given where we are, but I think for many of us, we do recognize we're in a crypto winter, right? And for us who are in the industry, we know that in past cycles, that typically means a build phase.

Historically, we've seen that the build phase is primarily focused on DeFi and projects—and what I tend to call often a lot of vanity projects—which struggle to tackle real-world use cases or problems that are really usable in a commercial sense, and in order to push us to that place to scale.

What we're seeing that's very different this time, though, is that institutions are building and building heavily, and they are battle-testing what they're building right now. They're able to react at weekends, like ourselves, to market situations; they're testing it on that every time, and particularly in the stablecoin space. So when we think about stablecoin payments, right now we're seeing a lot of infrastructure being built to enable wider adoption as regulation matures and evolves in certain jurisdictions.

Of course, in Europe, we have MiCA. In Switzerland, you know, we've been fortunate that we've had a regulatory framework for many years now. In the US, the just-recently updated version of the CLARITY Act was published. And we look forward to that coming to fruition very soon.

Suggested read: MiCA Regulation and EU Crypto Rules: What Changes in 2026

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: When building products, because we've touched on building in this space, what's the hardest balance to strike from your perspective? Innovation, regulation, or maybe simplicity for users?

MYLES HARRISON: I'll start with the last point on simplicity. For us, it's important to be able to abstract the complexities that often come with crypto. We have a very diverse client base, everything from crypto natives who are very used to dealing with very sophisticated setups, but then we also deal with a lot of clients who are coming into crypto for the first time. They may not understand the difference between hot and cold storage or private keys; they may not understand some of the risks, particularly from a fraud perspective; and they may not know how to spot warning signs or signals or how to protect themselves and keep themselves safe.

So really, we're there as their trusted partner to help them do that. I think the… When we think about how we design products, I come back to the concept of the triangle of innovation: desirability, feasibility, and viability. And for us, as a product team working at a crypto bank, we often start with: "Okay, what is most desirable from a user perspective? What problems are we solving?" But then, as you touched on, we have to balance that with our regulatory obligations and ensure compliance with the relevant legislation. And as we know, that is emerging globally at the moment. And that also creates challenges for us because what might work in Switzerland might not work in Europe under MiCA might not work under Genius and CLARITY, might not work under the UK, which is also evolving its framework. So that presents a lot of challenges. It's exciting; it's what makes me get up every day and go to work. But yeah, that does present real challenges for us on a weekly basis.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Given that you touched fraud, and we obviously focus on fraud on this podcast, as digital assets become more integrated into mainstream finance, TradFi, what risks or misuse are scaling fastest?

MYLES HARRISON: From our perspective, what we see at the moment is that the weak spots for us really are still people. So it's not any different really from what we saw in Web2, if we call it Web2 banking. And we can see from recent incidents where users have lost money in CeFi, so not talking about pure DeFi, but in CeFi. Actually, when you look at the root cause of many of those incidents in the last 6 to 12 months, it has ultimately been people at the root of that. Social engineering, which we know is a real concern, is a particular focus area for us. But we are fortunate as well to benefit from the rigor that comes with being within a regulated bank. And regulated banks, for very good reasons, have robust controls and processes.

We have adequate training for our employees. We have lines of defense. And that is something that I think the crypto industry is maturing towards. The regulation brings that. If we talk about MiCA, for example, the CASP license instills some of those frameworks, some of those controls, and all the learnings we've had for decades in Web2 and traditional finance, and it's bringing that to the crypto side.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Actually, that's a good point. The regulatory aspects you're talking about do help the industry mature. And I also wanted to ask, from your perspective, what actually builds trust in digital asset banking today? Is it better technology? Is it better regulation or better product design? Like, what's the top priority, you would say?

MYLES HARRISON: For us, our number one priority is security. No compromise. And we build that into our design, so we are secure by design. We bring that into our everyday thinking, and that's really important to us, and we emphasize that to our clients. We do that through education. We do that through our relationship managers who are in touch with our clients as well. So we don't just provide a fully digital-only interaction. We also provide human interaction, and we understand from our clients that it is really important for building trust, particularly in the early stages of any relationship.

And, particularly for our clients who come maybe more from the crypto native side, so more from directly purely from DeFi, we know that safety, security, and trust are paramount to them.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: That's great. We're all about security and trust here at the What The Fraud? Podcast. Thank you very much, Myles, for stopping by and having this conversation. Enjoy Miami, enjoy Consensus, and we'll see you around.

MYLES HARRISON: Thanks, Anastasia.

Jamal Raees, Polygon Labs

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: If crypto is going to move beyond trading and speculation, it has to work for real-world payments. That means faster settlement, lower cost, and systems that can operate globally, but also new infrastructure, new risks, new questions about trust. Companies like Polygon are trying to build exactly that infrastructure, from stablecoin payouts to on-chain effects and cross-border flows at scale. With me today is Jamal Raees, who leads payments strategy at Polygon Labs. Jamal, welcome. Great to have you here.

JAMAL RAEES: Thanks for having me.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: How is Consensus? How is Miami for you?

JAMAL RAEES: It's great. It's hot, but very busy. I feel the energy.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Great. I wanted to start just more broadly, maybe. You've been working on bringing crypto into real-world payments for years. What's actually working today beyond the hype?

JAMAL RAEES: I think there's a lot of hype, for sure. But I think you're really starting to see traction with stablecoins and cross-border payments. I think that's the key area that a lot of people are exploring. I think regulation has made things a lot easier. The economics of the space have improved significantly. I think the products have matured quite a bit, and with that, you've seen a lot of global support for blockchain and stablecoins around the world, and that has allowed people to start using them more integrated into their existing payment flows, all over the world.

We see tons of volume go from places like the US to Brazil, from places like Mexico to China or Africa, and from Southeast Asia, and these flows are largely driven by comfort in the space, regulation kind of paving the way, and, obviously, liquidity, support, and other technology that's making it possible.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Of course, stablecoins are the buzzword and have been, and as stablecoins are getting a lot of attention, what do most people still misunderstand about how they actually work as a payment infrastructure?

JAMAL RAEES: I think people think stablecoins are some crazy asset that's going to change everything and, like, redo the entire financial system, and I don't necessarily know if that's entirely true. They're definitely one of the greatest payment innovations we've had in the last 50 years, 100 years, or whatever.

But they're not gonna replace the existing banking system. In fact, they are, in my opinion, an extension of the banking system or the supercharging of the banking system.

The problem with traditional dollars is that they live in archaic systems. Or traditional fiat—they live in archaic systems. And with those archaic systems, they're not able to move freely and reach the potential benefits they need. When you put a dollar or another fiat on a blockchain, as you do with USDC or USDT, you supercharge that dollar. You enable it to work in ways it never did before, and I think that's the exciting payment innovation. That still doesn't mean that you need to abandon all risk policies. That doesn't mean that you need to completely wipe away the existing systems. In fact, many of these existing systems have entered the blockchain space and provided a ton of value. It's just when people understand how the technology's built and what it's built for that things start to get really exciting, and I think that's where we're just starting to get, and I think that's the beginning of the exciting parts.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Definitely. And a lot of people assume blockchain makes payments simpler, obviously. But in practice, there are still many moving parts. What's broken today that most people don't see from your perspective?

JAMAL RAEES: Blockchains are really just core infrastructure, raw technology. They're not meant to be end-to-end payment systems. I think they're really well-suited for payments infrastructure, but that means regulated parties and other counterparties that are safe, sound, and secure need to use the same risk practices and compliance policies and procedures to ensure those stablecoins are used effectively. And I think that once we start doing a little bit more of that, you'll start to see the end-to-end stack look a little more mature and a little more exciting.

But I think in the beginning, the retail side adopted stablecoins really quickly, which led to this technology boom and a lot of building, which is great. But now you're starting to see large institutions start to get in the space, and they're gonna start building with it in their existing payment flows in ways that are very compliant, very safe, very sound. It's gonna protect users; it's gonna make sure things grow in a very healthy way. And once that happens, I think you start to see it integrated quite a bit more into our day-to-day lives, which I don't really feel it is quite yet.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: And on compliance a bit, and I wanted to ask about fraud, since we obviously focus on it. You touched upon compliance a little bit, and I wanted to ask about fraud because we focus on fraud, obviously, on this Podcast. From what you've seen, is fraud in crypto payments more of a technology problem or a p and behavior problem?

JAMAL RAEES: That's a good question. It's definitely a bit of both. I think people need to learn and use the tools and technology out there better. I think we have really good technology, tools, and solutions out there, but people are just starting to become aware of them and learn how to implement them properly. We're seeing a lot more attention from the traditional payments world coming into the on-chain or crypto payments world, and that meshing of different ideologies is gonna, in my opinion, build a really exciting, interesting new system.

I do think we need more people to start building better, more intelligent fraud systems that take crypto considerations into account, as well as traditional considerations like, you know, people, use cases, technology, and whatever. But I think it's the meshing of those two things that's going to make it a lot better. So, it's a little bit of both.

I think the technology's getting better, but it's just starting to be implemented correctly. Then I think people are starting to learn more about it, and as they do, that leads to better, healthier, safer practices, et cetera.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: And my last question. So you've worked across both traditional payments and crypto, and what's one thing that crypto still needs to fix or learn before it can really compete with existing payment systems? And don't say compliance.

JAMAL RAEES: Honestly, blockchains to me are just a payment rail. And when people see them as a payment rail instead of, like, a whole new crazy system, you get to realize that they should just be added to the stack with all the other payment rails, and they should be treated with all the other payment rails, which means they follow the same exact processes and are built in the exact same way from a technology perspective.

I think there's a lot that you can do with blockchains that are really exciting, but ultimately, people are forgetting that blockchains are simply just payment rails that allow you to access the world in very easy and safe ways, instantly, programmatically, at a fraction of the cost of other payment rails.
And when you start to see it that way and integrate it into your stack as just a payment rail, it becomes much simpler and easier to build with.

ANASTASIA SHVECHKOVA: Thank you very much, Jamal, for joining us today. Enjoy Miami, enjoy Consensus, and we'll see you around.

JAMAL RAEES: Thanks for having me.