Citigroup has moved tokenized private equity from concept to live transaction, launching Digital Depositary Receipts tied to private company shares and settling its first deal with Kaleido investors in Citi’s Wealth business.
The product is designed to give investors direct exposure to private company equity through a familiar depositary receipt structure, while giving private companies another route to liquidity, according to PYMNTS. The key shift is not that Citi has put the word “tokenized” on a private market product. It’s that a major bank is acting as both issuer and custodian for blockchain-based receipts representing private shares.
That matters because private company equity has usually been difficult to reach unless an investor had the right institutional channel, wealth platform, fund relationship, or direct secondary market access. Citi’s structure aims to wrap that exposure in a bank-managed format investors already understand.
This won’t make every startup share tradeable for everyone. Access, investor eligibility, transfer restrictions, and securities law still sit at the center of the model. But it shows how banks are trying to pull blockchain rails into real capital markets plumbing, a theme we’ve also tracked in 2% Tokenized Stocks Bet Could Hand Crypto a $5T Prize.
Why should investors care about Citi’s tokenized receipts for private company shares?
Private markets have grown more important as companies stay private longer, but access remains uneven. Citi is pitching Digital Depositary Receipts on private shares as a way to let qualified investors gain exposure without handling private stock certificates, bespoke secondary agreements, or one-off legal structures.
The appeal is simple. Investors get a recognizable instrument. Issuers get a broader investor channel. Citi gets to sit in the middle as issuer, custodian, settlement provider, and trusted gatekeeper.
SIX, described in Citi’s release as a fully regulated digital central securities depositary, provides the blockchain infrastructure. Citi serves as custodian on the platform and is responsible for settlement and safekeeping of the tokenized depositary receipts.
“Our Digital Depositary Receipts product is designed to provide superior client service, safeguard assets and facilitate capital markets activity with the same rigor that underpins traditional financial markets,” said Bis Chatterjee, head of partnerships and innovation, services at Citi. “The interoperability of the product will further enable Citi to support a wider range of issuers and investors as digital asset market infrastructure continues to evolve.”
The first transaction involved Kaleido, an institutional tokenization and digital asset platform that is also a Citi portfolio company. Investors came from Citi’s Wealth business.
That starting point is telling. Citi is not trying to build an open crypto exchange for private shares. It is starting inside controlled, bank-mediated channels.
What are Citi Digital Depositary Receipts and what do investors actually own?
A Digital Depositary Receipt is a tokenized receipt linked to private company equity. It is meant to work more like a depositary receipt than a direct private share purchase.
Traditional depositary receipts let investors gain exposure to company shares through a bank-managed instrument. The bank handles the underlying custody and structure, while investors hold the receipt. Citi is applying that model to private market shares and representing the receipt on blockchain-based infrastructure.
That distinction matters. Investors are not simply buying a token because it exists on a ledger. They are buying a bank-issued receipt connected to private shares, with rights and limitations defined by the legal structure behind it.
The tokenization layer changes how the receipt can be recorded, transferred, and settled. It does not automatically change the economic substance of the underlying asset.
A simplified comparison:
| Feature | Direct private share purchase | Citi Digital Depositary Receipt |
|---|---|---|
| Investor exposure | Private company equity | Receipt linked to private company equity |
| Structure | Often bespoke and negotiated | Bank-issued depositary receipt model |
| Custody | Depends on transaction setup | Citi acts as custodian on the platform |
| Transfer process | Often manual and restricted | Designed for digital settlement workflows |
| Access | Relationship-driven and compliance-heavy | Still controlled, but potentially broader within approved channels |
The word “receipt” does a lot of work here. Receipt holders need to understand exactly what they own, what rights flow through, and what happens if the private company stays private for years.
How do tokenized depositary receipts make private share transactions faster and easier to manage?
Private share transactions are messy for a reason. The buyer pool is limited. Transfers often require company approval. Pricing can be opaque. Paperwork takes time. Cap table records need to stay clean. Restrictions on who can buy and sell are not optional.
Citi’s model tries to standardize part of that process. By turning the depositary receipt into a digital asset on regulated blockchain infrastructure, ownership and transfer records can become easier to track and reconcile.
That can matter for three groups:
- Investors: A receipt structure may be easier to hold and monitor than a bespoke private share position.
- Issuers: A bank-managed channel may help private companies reach qualified investors without immediately going public.
- Intermediaries: Custody, settlement, eligibility checks, and recordkeeping can move into a more controlled digital workflow.
The operational promise is not magic. Tokenization can improve the wrapper and transaction rails, but it does not erase private market risk. If the underlying shares are hard to value, the tokenized receipt will still be hard to value. If demand is thin, a digital record will not create deep liquidity by itself.
Citi’s own positioning is careful. The bank said it is considering extending the offering across other financial market infrastructures and blockchain networks. That suggests the current product is not the final form. It is a controlled deployment that could be expanded if the legal, technical, and client demand pieces line up.
The broader fintech lesson is familiar: faster access can be useful, but speed does not remove complexity. We’ve seen that tension in other financial products too, including small business banking tools covered in Cheap, Fast, Tricky: Digital Bank for Small Business.
Who gains liquidity when private companies issue Digital Depositary Receipts?
The issuer gets the cleanest pitch. A private company can potentially reach more qualified investors without going through an IPO or pushing existing shareholders into fragmented secondary market transactions.
That matters for companies that want capital or shareholder liquidity but do not want the reporting, market pressure, and timing constraints of public listing. Citi’s product gives them another route, assuming investor demand exists and the company is willing to support the structure.
Existing holders may benefit too. Early employees, venture investors, founders, and other backers often want partial liquidity before a public exit. If the program supports secondary sales, tokenized depositary receipts could create a more organized path than bilateral negotiations.
Citi also gains. The bank can position itself across several roles at once:
- Issuer: Citi creates the depositary receipt structure.
- Custodian: Citi handles safekeeping on the platform.
- Settlement provider: Citi supports transfer and settlement workflows.
- Investor gateway: Citi connects private issuers with wealth and institutional clients.
Markets Media, citing Citi’s announcement, said the launch “marks the first time a global financial services company is both issuing and acting as a custodian for tokenized depositary receipts representing private companies,” according to Markets Media.
If this scales, more private company exposure could move from bespoke negotiations into standardized, bank-mediated channels. That would not make private markets public. It would make parts of them more institutionally packaged.
What risks come with tokenized access to private company equity?
The biggest risks are still the old ones. Private shares can be hard to value, hard to sell, and far less transparent than public stocks. A tokenized receipt does not make quarterly disclosures appear. It does not guarantee a buyer. It does not force an IPO.
Investors also need to study the receipt terms closely. The details determine whether the instrument behaves like useful exposure or a narrow claim with limited flexibility.
The key questions are practical:
- Voting rights: Does the receipt holder get any say, or are rights retained elsewhere?
- Economic rights: How are dividends, distributions, or corporate actions handled?
- Transfer limits: Who can buy, who can sell, and when?
- Custody protections: What exactly is Citi safekeeping, and under what terms?
- Issuer timeline: What happens if the company delays an IPO or stays private indefinitely?
- Platform risk: How are blockchain records, smart contract logic, and operational controls governed?
Regulatory limits matter too. These products may be restricted by investor class, jurisdiction, platform, or issuer terms. Citi’s language around trusted access points and responsible expansion points to a product designed for controlled distribution, not mass retail trading.
That is the right posture. Private market access without guardrails can quickly turn into a disclosure problem, a suitability problem, or both. The same regulatory sensitivity that surrounds financial market access showed up in our coverage of CFTC Puts Prediction Markets on Notice With First Rule, where product design and oversight were inseparable.
Blockchain can improve auditability and workflow discipline. It cannot replace underwriting, disclosure, legal review, or common sense.
How might a late-stage fintech use Citi Digital Depositary Receipts before an IPO?
Take a mature fintech that wants to stay private for another two years. Its early employees want some liquidity. Venture backers want to sell a portion of their holdings. New investors want exposure, but they do not want to negotiate separate private share purchases with multiple sellers.
Under Citi’s model, the company could work with Citi to create tokenized depositary receipts tied to a defined pool of existing private shares. Citi would issue the receipts, safeguard the related securities, and distribute the product through approved channels to eligible investors.
That gives each side a cleaner route.
Employees and early investors may get a structured path to sell some exposure. New investors gain a bank-managed instrument instead of a bespoke private share deal. The issuer can support liquidity without immediately entering public markets.
Kaleido is the first real example in Citi’s rollout. The transaction involved Kaleido, Citi’s Wealth investors, and support from Citi’s Secondary Private Markets business, according to the source material. Kaleido Founder and CEO Steve Cerveny framed the product as a way for private companies to pursue growth while keeping flexibility.
“Citi’s Digital Depositary Receipts allow us to explore new paths for growth while keeping the agility that makes private companies competitive, and that’s an advantage for founders planning long term,” Cerveny said.
The practical takeaway is blunt: the product’s success will depend less on the word tokenized and more on issuer quality, legal rights, custody protections, pricing transparency, and actual trading demand.
Citi has also been tied to a planned tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, which PYMNTS reported is expected in the first half of 2027. Put together, Citi is testing tokenization on both sides of institutional finance: money movement and securities exposure.
The next test is whether high-quality private companies want this structure beyond a first transaction, and whether investors treat the receipts as serious private market instruments rather than blockchain-branded wrappers. If Citi can keep the legal protections familiar while making settlement and access cleaner, tokenized depositary receipts could become a practical bridge between private equity ownership and digital market infrastructure.
Disclaimer: This XOOMAR analysis is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal, tax, or professional advice. It does not provide buy, sell, hold, price-target, portfolio, or personalized recommendations. Verify information independently and consult qualified professionals before making decisions.
The Bottom Line
- Citi’s live transaction shows tokenized private equity moving from concept to real capital markets use.
- The structure could make private company exposure easier for qualified investors to access and hold.
- It signals that major banks are beginning to integrate blockchain infrastructure into regulated securities markets.
Originally published on XOOMAR. For more news and analysis, visit XOOMAR.
