How WLTH Works: Slice Legal & Custody Mechanics Explained

Tokenised pre-IPO investing only means something if you understand what sits behind the token. Anyone can show a number on a screen. Backing that number 1:1 with a real position, holding it in a segregated legal entity, and tracking it transparently on-chain is the harder part, and it is where WLTH is built to be different. This guide explains how WLTH works: what a Slice legally represents, how custody maps to your holding, and the full workflow from investment to trading and distribution.

What a Slice Represents

Every WLTH pre-IPO deal is structured as a tokenised Slice, issued as an ERC-721 token. A Slice represents tokenised economic rights to your exact share of a specific allocation.

Owning a Slice entitles you to your pro-rata portion of any liquidity event tied to that position, including dividends, partial exits, a strategic sale, or an IPO. It does not make you a shareholder in the underlying company. Slices do not confer voting or shareholder rights in the target business, and the underlying company is entirely unaffiliated with the offering. Your sole counterparty is WLTH.

That distinction defines the instrument. You hold a contractual economic right against WLTH, backed by a real position, rather than a share certificate in the private company itself.

How the Underlying Shares Are Sourced

Before any Slice exists, the underlying asset has to be acquired and verified.

WLTH partners with established Wall Street brokers to source deals through an exclusive network of company founders, early employees, and venture capital funds. This is how allocations in private companies that are normally unavailable to the public become accessible.

Skin in the Game

The sourcing model runs on a skin-in-the-game principle. Rather than simply matching buyers and sellers, the broker uses their own capital to purchase and warehouse the shares first. Because they take the financial risk onto their own balance sheet before the allocation reaches WLTH, they conduct rigorous due diligence on every company and vet every counterparty, whether a fund's General Partner or a direct shareholder, to confirm the shares are legitimate and the transaction is secure.

How Custody Maps to Your Slice

Once the shares are verified and purchased, they are placed into a dedicated Special Purpose Vehicle. An SPV is a secure container designed solely to hold that one specific asset. When you invest through WLTH, you are buying tokenised exposure into that structure.

The link between your token and the asset is direct. Every Slice is backed 1:1 by the equity held in the structure, giving you tokenised economic exposure to that exact position. The underlying equity is held by a company owned and managed by the WLTH protocol and governed by its Terms and Conditions.

Segregation and Continuity

Private equity positions sit in a legally segregated asset-holding structure, separate from WLTH's operating entity. The assets are not held on the platform's balance sheet and are protected from operational liabilities. Predefined administrative step-in provisions mean that if WLTH as an operator were ever unable to continue servicing the platform, an independent administrator could be appointed to manage record keeping, distributions, and exit events. Ownership records are maintained on-chain and mirrored in legal registers, which is what makes that continuity possible.

How Ownership Is Proven

Your Slice metadata is the single source of truth. It records your share, governs your voting power in exit decisions, and updates automatically after any partial liquidation.

Proof of ownership confirms a direct 1:1 link between your tokenised holding and the real-world economic right and profit participation in the asset. WLTH publishes an annual attestation letter from an independent law or auditing firm confirming ownership of the corresponding allocations. On-chain records, legal registers, and an independent attestation together allow ownership to be verified rather than simply asserted.

The End-to-End Workflow

Here is the full lifecycle of a Slice, from entry to exit.

Invest

You commit funds to a live deal on the WLTH platform, starting from as little as $20, paying by card or crypto. The Entry Valuation shown on a term sheet is an indicative reference based on the most recent broker data, and it can move before a deal closes due to new share issuances or cap table updates. If it changes after you commit, WLTH notifies you by email with the updated figures.

Receive Your Slice

Once the deal closes, you hold an ERC-721 Slice representing your pro-rata share of the allocation, backed 1:1 by the position held in the SPV.

Hold or Trade

Slices are fully tradable ERC-721 tokens. You can sell yours on the WLTH Marketplace at any time rather than waiting years for an exit.

Execution and Distribution

Once an exit is approved, the protocol executes the sale. Proceeds flow to a vault and are distributed instantly in USDC, pro-rata to Slice holders, with no manual claiming.

Who This Is Built For

This structure exists to remove the traditional gatekeeping around private markets. Minimum checks in the hundreds of thousands and closed insider networks put pre-IPO exposure out of reach for almost everyone. By fractionalising large allocations into tradable, on-chain Slices backed 1:1 by real positions, WLTH opens that asset class to a far wider community of investors, with transparency and liquidity built into the instrument.

Private markets and crypto are high-risk, and returns are never guaranteed. What WLTH controls is the structure: real backing, segregated custody, transparent records, and a clear path from entry to exit.

Explore the live pre-IPO opportunities on WLTH and see what backing every Slice 1:1 looks like in practice.