Citi Moves Into Real-World Assets With Private Company Share Tokenization Platform

Citi News: Citigroup Introduces Platform for Tokenized Private Company Shares

Citigroup has launched a new crypto-enabled platform designed to tokenize and facilitate trading of late-stage private company shares for institutional and eligible investors. The initiative is being developed in partnership with SDX, the digital asset arm of the SIX Swiss Exchange, and is built on a permissioned distributed ledger architecture.

Under the structure, Citi will act as both custodian and tokenization agent, issuing regulated tokenized depositary receipts backed by underlying private equity holdings stored within traditional financial institutions. The bank is already engaging with several large private companies that may participate in the system.

The initial phase will be limited to non-U.S. investors, with U.S. market access expected later pending regulatory approval. The platform is targeting the estimated $75 billion late-stage pre-IPO market, which has expanded as major private firms such as SpaceX and Anthropic remain private longer, reducing secondary liquidity opportunities for institutional investors.

Citi Tokenization System: Built on SDX and R3 Corda Infrastructure

The platform operates on R3’s Corda distributed ledger, integrated through SDX’s central securities depository infrastructure within the SIX Group. Unlike public blockchain networks, it is a permissioned system designed specifically for regulated financial environments, focusing on compliance, custody, and settlement requirements.

Citi issues tokenized depositary receipts while maintaining custody of the underlying securities. Distribution at launch will be handled through Sygnum Bank in Switzerland and SBI Digital Markets in Singapore, with a focus on institutional and qualified investors across Europe and Asia.

Citi describes the model as bringing private company equities into the same environment as public stocks like Apple, enabling both asset classes to be accessed within a unified investment framework.

The platform also seeks to streamline private market operations, which are typically slow and fragmented due to manual processes and complex ownership records. With SDX infrastructure, Citi states that settlement times can be significantly reduced, moving closer to near-instant execution.

Tokenization Outlook: Citi Targets Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market Expansion

Citi’s Tokenization 2030 report projects that tokenized real-world assets could grow to $5.5 trillion by 2030, up from approximately $17 billion today. The strongest growth is expected in private equity, real estate, and money market instruments, with estimates ranging from $2.7 trillion to $8.2 trillion depending on regulatory developments.

While institutional sentiment has fluctuated in the short term, major financial institutions continue building infrastructure, reinforcing the view that tokenization represents a long-term structural shift rather than a short-lived trend.

Competition across traditional finance is also intensifying. JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citi are jointly developing a tokenized deposit system through The Clearing House, expected to launch around 2027 to compete with stablecoin settlement rails. The New York Stock Exchange is also preparing a tokenized securities platform for late 2026, while DTCC has already begun limited production testing.

Overall, these initiatives indicate that tokenization is transitioning from pilot projects to production-grade financial infrastructure. Citi’s SDX-powered platform positions it directly within this emerging institutional ecosystem, particularly as demand grows for access to private markets amid delayed IPO activity and evolving capital flows.

About The Author

ctleditor

See author's posts