Citi Unveils Bitcoin Custody in New Custody+ Suite

A global bank putting its name on bitcoin custody matters less for the asset itself than for the institutional plumbing it normalizes: custody is the gating function that lets regulated allocators hold crypto without building their own key management. Citi's entry signals that the custody layer is consolidating around banks rather than crypto-native providers, which shifts competitive pressure onto specialist custodians. The open question is whether the 2026 launch timeline holds and which client segments, institutional or wealth, the suite is built to serve first.