The global market for tokenized assets is projected to reach $16 trillion by 2030, according to a Boston Consulting Group study. Institutions are increasingly turning to blockchain for asset management, with tokenization allowing fractional ownership of real estate, equities, and even art.
Major financial institutions have accelerated adoption. For instance, BlackRock recently filed for tokenization-focused ETFs, signaling a significant commitment. Stablecoins such as USDC and USDT have emerged as de facto tokenized U.S. Treasuries, exceeding a $200 billion value. Recognizing this shift, policymakers in Washington have reconsidered central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives toward the US debt tokenization.
Closely watching this development is Valentin Preobrazhenskiy, founder and CEO of LATOKEN, a leading cryptocurrency exchange specializing in altcoins. With over 3,000 digital assets listed and a user base exceeding four million, LATOKEN’s primary mission is to help founders successfully launch their tokens while assisting traders in discovering high-potential projects at an early stage. By leveraging AI-powered analytics and sophisticated on-chain data, LATOKEN gives traders critical insights ahead of broader market recognition.
The Journey of a Fintech Innovator
This former Vice President of the Harvard Club of Russia has had an unconventional career, spanning finance, AI, and global education. With early experience in energy strategy at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (now IHS S&P), Preobrazhenskiy transitioned into asset management at Marcuard Spectrum, eventually rising to Director of Research. Later, he founded Avega Capital, a long-short equities hedge fund, where he developed a proprietary back-office system that he successfully sold.
Preobrazhenskiy had the foresight that led him to exit the Russian markets well ahead of the 2014 geopolitical crisis, redirecting his attention to global financial and technological opportunities.
Recognizing the transformative potential of technology, Preobrazhenskiy cultivated a thriving community through tech meetups starting in 2014, bringing together innovators and entrepreneurs. This community-building led directly to launching Zalogo, a home equity marketplace, which he later successfully exited. These experiences deepened his understanding of inefficiencies within traditional asset markets and highlighted blockchain’s potential to resolve them.
In parallel, Preobrazhenskiy contributed actively to entrepreneurial growth as Director and Mentor at the Founder Institute, a prestigious global startup accelerator whose alumni companies have valuations exceeding $20 billion. He provided mentorship to numerous startup founders, guiding them through fundraising, refining product-market fit, and achieving sustainable growth — insights he consistently applies to LATOKEN today.
Establishing LATOKEN
Preobrazhenskiy’s immersion in blockchain through tech meetups sparked his recognition of a growing need — startups were rapidly launching tokens, but specialized exchanges for trading these emerging assets were limited. Foreseeing the eventual tokenization of millions of assets, Preobrazhenskiy founded LATOKEN in 2017. Under his leadership, LATOKEN quickly established itself among the top 50 cryptocurrency exchanges globally, as ranked by CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.
AI and Automation in Trading
Automation is at the core of LATOKEN’s operational efficiency. Under Preobrazhenskiy’s leadership, the platform has implemented AI-driven hiring processes, allowing for more efficient recruitment. “We’ve eliminated the bottlenecks of manual hiring by training AI to source, vet, and onboard candidates at scale,” he explains. “It’s part of a broader vision to automate workflows and free up human creativity.” This innovative approach was recognized when LATOKEN was listed among Forbes’ Top 30 Remote Employers globally.
Beyond trading, he has extended this automation philosophy into Agiens.com, an AI marketplace aimed at helping startups streamline business operations. “We’re at the beginning of a global shift where AI and automation will redefine how businesses operate,” he says. “Trading, hiring, and even decision-making will become more efficient and precise.”
Building a Global Fintech Community
As a global community builder, Preobrazhenskiy has hosted over 527 documented tech meetups, making him a prominent figure in the blockchain community. He has a Guinness World Record application in process for this feat. His Blockchain Economic Forum has drawn top-tier economists, venture capitalists, and regulators, including the SEC chair and even presidents. His efforts in the tech community are further reflected in his role as a judge in pitch competitions like Gain Ventures at DevCon and Blockchain Life in Dubai.
His efforts have also extended to philanthropy, having founded the Global Education scholarship program. The program has helped more than 750 students attend top universities in the US, UK, and Europe.
The World Model Framework
Beyond his platform-building efforts, Preobrazhenskiy developed the “World Model,” an interdisciplinary framework highlighting how to measure the universal goal of life. It is useful to prioritize conflicting goals.
The framework is integrating biology, economics, and cognitive science to analyze life’s evolution through energy transactions. It conceptualizes programs as economic actors strategically maximizing future energy for self-replication. Currency is considered a control right to use energy. Incorporating both monetary and social currency transactions of the programs resolves behavioral irrationality problems blocking economic analysis.
The programs are coordinated via prices across markets to maximise the joint future energy usable for self-replication of the species. This approach also integrates physical principles into discussions of consciousness and meaning, offering a measurable, energy-based definition of the goal of life — to increase the Nasdaq index as a proxy for world capitalisation. “If you don’t model your worldview, you could be outsourcing your life strategy to dying programs or randomness,” Preobrazhenskiy says.
Looking Ahead
“Crypto and AI are just the starting points,” notes Preobrazhenskiy. “My ultimate mission is to democratize capital markets with web3 and AI. This will empower more people to be stakeholders of the assets, representing the future well-being of humanity, thus aligning short-term incentives with long-term prosperity for people, companies, and the world. The more people are stakeholders of the future, the better it will be.”
