CL
Singapore · ··:··

Cliffton Lee

Onchain strategy for institutions taking digital assets seriously.

I work with global asset managers, banks, and the protocols building the infrastructure they connect to: scoping mandates, structuring deployments, and executing tokenization programs that hold up under legal, compliance, and treasury review. I also edit Suit Up, Asia's institutional desk on tokenisation.

Portrait of Cliffton Lee
Photographed in Singapore · 2025

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Institutions and platforms worked with

BlackRock Securitize Franklin Templeton WisdomTree Ondo OpenEden Robinhood Arbitrum Tally dYdX Foundation Twilio Pymetrics
The desk

Suit Up

Asia's institutional read on tokenisation.

A weekly briefing plus operator-grade reference on what banks, asset managers, and regulators are shipping, with the global picture in full and Asia in depth. Independently researched, written, and built.

Institutions tracked
Jurisdictions
Live deployments
1
Weekly briefing

Recent from the desk

    Professional highlights.

    1. i.
      2024 / 2025 Arbitrum Foundation

      $70M RWA Strategic Growth and Investment Program

      Led the $70M tokenized RWA strategic growth and investment program from concept to production, the first institutional deployment of an onchain treasury into tokenized real-world assets, spanning digital custody, tokenization platforms, settlement, and redemption. Sourced and structured allocations with BlackRock/Securitize (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton (BENJI), WisdomTree, Ondo, and OpenEden, covering tokenized treasuries, money market funds, and stablecoin-adjacent yield products.

      Acted as a trusted advisor to institutional counterparties on the operational mechanics of onchain deployment: custody flows, regulatory considerations, settlement and redemption mechanics, oracle and pricing infrastructure, and post-trade servicing for tokenized assets.

      Issuers
      BlackRock Securitize Franklin Templeton WisdomTree Ondo OpenEden
    2. ii.
      2024 / 2025 Arbitrum Foundation × Robinhood

      Robinhood Chain and tokenized US equities

      Supported the Robinhood Chain partnership launching tokenized US equities on the Arbitrum stack. Engaged across the commercial, product, and ecosystem workstreams as Robinhood brought tokenized real-world assets to retail and institutional investors on an Arbitrum-based chain.

      Partners
      Robinhood Arbitrum
    3. iii.
      2024 / 2025 Arbitrum Foundation

      $225M Gaming Catalyst Program

      Contributed to structured ecosystem partnership programs totaling $96M+ across hundreds of technology teams, and led the $225M Gaming Catalyst Program from whitespace identification through commercial model design and partner onboarding.

      Foundation
      Arbitrum

    Eight years across institutional partnerships, programs, and product.

    Suit Up

    Suit Up

    Founder & Editor

    Suit Up is a weekly briefing plus operator-grade reference on institutional tokenization, with Asia covered in depth.

    2026 / present Current
    Flip ⤺

    Independently researched, written, and built. Tracks institutions, jurisdictions, and live deployments across the region.

    Tally

    Head of Strategy & Partnerships

    Token operations infrastructure platform serving leading institutions and protocols, including Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, Arbitrum, Compound, and ZKsync.

    Jul 2025 / present Current
    Flip ⤺

    Owns commercial partnerships and business development. Identifies, develops, and closes opportunities with institutional clients, exchanges, asset managers, and protocol treasuries.

    Drives onchain capital formation and token operations for Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, Arbitrum, and ZKsync. Leading exploration of an agentic AI capital formation platform.

    Arbitrum Foundation

    Growth & Strategy

    Aug 2023 / Jul 2025
    Flip ⤺

    Led the $70M RWA strategic growth and investment program, deploying institutional capital into tokenized real-world assets alongside BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Ondo Finance, and WisdomTree.

    Supported the Robinhood Chain partnership and led the $225M Gaming Catalyst Program. Built the institutional partnerships stack for onchain RWA adoption.

    dYdX Foundation

    SEA Growth Lead

    May 2022 / Aug 2023
    Flip ⤺

    Built the Southeast Asia growth motion from zero. Opened Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and surrounding markets for the foundation.

    Sourced and activated trading firms, infrastructure teams, and technology startups. Represented the foundation at SCB10X Bangkok Blockathon and THub.

    Twilio

    Product Manager

    Jul 2019 / May 2023
    Flip ⤺

    Ran global operations on a $16M messaging product serving payments flows (authentication, transaction alerts, confirmations) across five markets: the US, Estonia, India, Singapore, and Japan.

    Built an automated B2C product line contributing $2.1M per quarter. Cut enterprise integration lead time by 22%. Led a cross-functional team of seven across product, engineering, and partner operations.

    Pymetrics

    Sales Development Lead

    Sep 2017 / Jun 2019
    Flip ⤺

    VC-backed AI and HR-tech SaaS startup. Global sales development across New York, London, Singapore, and broader APAC.

    Pipeline generation and enterprise outbound for AI-powered software sold to corporate HR teams.

    In flight

    What I'm actively building.

    • Suit Up Daily ingestion pipeline, editorial read layer, expanding APAC regulatory coverage.
    • Tally Agentic AI capital formation platform with engineering and product.

    Quantitative research systems

    • Courtside Six-model probabilistic ensemble for sports prediction markets; public calibration tracking across 77,000+ NBA game logs.
    • Edge Eight-step probabilistic pricing pipeline with dynamic ensemble re-weighting against market consensus.
    • 5-Min Markets Millisecond-precision latency measurement across exchange feeds, oracle updates, and prediction market orderbooks.

    If you'd like to talk.

    Email and LinkedIn are best. I read both daily. Telegram if you already know me.