According to The Wall Street Journal, Citi is preparing to launch a blockchain platform that will allow wealthy clients and institutional clients to trade tokenized shares of private company equity. The platform will initially be available only to offshore investors. Citi said it has held discussions with several large private companies about participating in the initiative.
Private equity access moves onto blockchain rails
The report said demand on Wall Street for private equity allocation has been rising as prominent private companies such as SpaceX and Anthropic delay going public. Citi’s planned platform is designed around tokenized trading of equity interests in private companies, with the initial client base consisting of wealthy and institutional investors.
Citi has previously forecast that the tokenized securities market could reach about $4 trillion by 2030. The bank has also piloted tokenized client deposits through Token Services for cross-border settlement. More recently, Citi joined a tokenized deposit network alliance led by JPMorgan, with the goal of enabling around-the-clock settlement for large client funds throughout the year.