Less than two years have passed since the ICO stage and LATOKEN is already among biggest exchanges in the world by daily trading volume. How it was possible to reach this level for such a short period of time? What helped to develop such a sophisticated project? What are the major trends in crypto field currently and how LATOKEN is going to cope with them? The CEO of LATOKEN Valentin Preobrazhenskiy answers all of these questions and sheds a light on current market situation and LATOKEN’s growth plans!
Q: It is a big pleasure to speak with you, Valentin. It would be extremely interesting to discover LATOKEN’s story of success and to know your plans on future developments and improvements. So, let’s start: What inspired you to build LATOKEN exchange?
VP: Capital markets are delivering incentives from the future. They deliver signals from the future to use resources in a wise way, in the most productive way for today. Investors compete with each other to predict which asset or product will be more profitable, obtain a bigger market share, or deliver more value to customers. While trying to predict all of these issues, they relocate their resources. As a result, they open the doors to a huge number of entrepreneurs to establish companies that will create brighter future. And the efficiency of it all is measured by the amount of resources relocated.
Blockchain is a perfect instrument to unlock the access to the capital markets. Right now, only 15% of the world population have access to capital markets. This technology allows us to reach more people out there. At the same time, blockchain offers a unique possibility to significantly broaden the amount of tradable assets.
Q: I would say that LATOKEN is a story of huge success. The company is already among the Top 20 exchanges by daily trading volume. How did you make it possible?
VP: We are investing huge money in the development of our building and matching engines, as part of an infrastructure capable to meet the demand of sophisticated, high frequency traders and institutions. Also, we are onboarding real customers in search for liquidity in new tokens. As we are leaders in liquidity for many popular tokens, LATOKEN has become a top choice for members of the crypto community.
Q: As I have already mentioned, LATOKEN is among the top 20 crypto exchanges by daily trading volume. What is your expectation for 2019?
VP: We want LATOKEN to become the #1 exchange for transborder money transactions and the assets market. We are building a solid infrastructure to help us reach that goal. We are developing our own blockchain to serve a powerful transborder payment system.
Q: LATOKEN was conceived as a platform for asset tokenization. There are some examples of art tokenization and even real estate projects. Is there anything that can’t be tokenized?
VP: Where is the demand for assets tokenization? Which assets will have enough demand for liquidity? These are important questions when talking about tokenization. Technically, nearly everything can be tokenized, but not everything has sufficient demand. Let’s take an example: the cost of tokenization, the cost for transparency, for consumer goods could be higher than the benefit from liquidity. So, if you tokenize a car which is a subject to damages, you will also have a cost for the analysis of the car conditions. Eventually, the vehicle will likely go out of fashion. Therefore, you will understand that there is no need for tokenization of your car in terms of building investment instrument. You can opt to invest in a leasing company which can issue tokens, but not for a unique car.
Q: Security token offerings are rapidly raising in popularity. Do you think that Security Token Offerings is the number one crypto trend in 2019?
VP: Well, I cannot say that it is the №1 trend in crypto world, but it is definitely a giant that’s sleeping right at the moment. STOs could help create a transborder equity markets which allows people from Africa or any place in the world to invest in American or European equities. Secondly, security tokens have the power to turn illiquid assets into liquid ones. Private equities, venture funds, startups: all of them can issue shares and be traded in a secondary market. In my opinion, the number one case for this year is stablecoins. To be more specific – the rise of stablecoins for the transborder payment applications. This is a top business case for 2019.
Q: What role stablecoins play in LATOKEN’s ecosystem?
VP: More than $5 trillion are traded on average each day in the Forex market. Stablecoins can facilitate transborder transactions. As they’re based on blockchain, they offer significant value for traders, potentially persuading them to switch from fiat to stablecoins in the future. There is no need to interact with private corresponding banks which can possibly hold your international transaction for 3-5 days and charge a big commission for it. Processing a transaction on blockchain takes just a few minutes.
But that’s not it. There is another interesting use case. Nowadays, people need fiat currency to purchase food and goods in most countries. If they have crypto, they are forced to exchange it, rather than use it directly for day-to-day operations. Here is where stablecoins come into play. Their stability makes them a great digital alternative for the regular user, to send and receive money. LATOKEN has already listed 7 different currencies: US Dollar (USDL), Euro (EURL), Indian Rupee (RUPL), British Pound (GBPL) Swiss Franc (CHFL), Argentinean Peso (ARSL), Brazilian Real (BRLL). Users can simply log in, put British Pounds, get Rupees or exchange them for any other currencies on our marketplace, no matter where they are, and it’s all done at the blink of an eye. Stablecoins are extremely convenient and useful for the transborder transactions.
Q: I would like to dig more into security token offerings. I know that plenty of security tokens are already traded on LATOKEN. In fact, there is full STO coming up soon on your platform. What steps did you take to embrace the security tokens trend?
VP: First of all, we’ve partnered up with a broker dealer to issue security tokens. Secondly, we guarantee that qualified investors within the LATOKEN platform get access to these new investments. It works for most countries. The infrastructure of the LATOKEN ecosystem has allowed us to list 5 security tokens already. We are one of the pioneers in security tokens listings landscape. We have a full service of security token launching on LATOKEN.
Q: Even though the trend seems to be moving to STOs, there are still more ICOs in the market. What do you think about ICOs as the way of fundraising?
VP: I think the ICO model is still relevant. But if you attach equity to your token then it will make it more attractive to investors. The guys who came up with utility tokens they expected these currencies to conquer a future global market. It is like a .com bubble. Thousands of companies created, but only a few will lead the world in terms of capitalisation. The same applies to blockchain. I believe among all of these startups there are future market leaders.
Q: Listing on LATOKEN… What value does it offer to projects?
VP: Listing your project on LATOKEN could help you acquire new users rapidly, onboard real community members, traders. In many cases, the ability to generate “network effect” is crucial in determining a project’s success. And to do so, it’s extremely important to rely on your exchange. We distribute information about all listed projects among hundreds of thousands of traders through our multiple communication channels, including email blast and social media profiles. We also feature some projects on our main site, which is visited by 2 million people per month on average. Telegram is also an extremely powerful tool that can bring up to 100K verified users to the project. Additionally, LATOKEN offers several promotional activities to boost engagement with the crypto community, such as airdrops or trading competitions.
Q: Your new currency “L” will be issued on LATOKEN’s blockchain. Am I right?
VP: Yes, L will run on our own blockchain. It will serve as a payment method, with the commission within it. Many other tokens will also be issued on our blockchain, including tokenized fiat currencies to be used for transborder transactions. I see L token as a tool that will revolutionize the market of transborder transactions.
Q: I think it is impossible to build such a sophisticated system without a strong ideology behind and a special approach with employees. Some people think that the most important part of success is the people that surrounds you. Do you agree with this statement?
VP: Yes, absolutely. People live in other people’s minds. Each time we interact, a part of ourselves will remain with the other person. It works like blockchain. We copy information from each other to a synopsis of each other. When someone dies – a part of him/her will still exist in the brain of others. The more value this part has – the more chances that the millions of people will replicate it. Actually, I think that developers are creating a new form of life. If code is good enough, it will be present in millions of mobile devices and replicate itself.
Q: What are the main skills that you appreciate in people?
VP: The ability to find a way to maximize value for clients and to enjoy the way you do it, creating new ideas, using an innovative approach.
Q: Who is invited to take part in the further development of LATOKEN?
VP: The one thing required to integrate an innovative teams is the ability to produce 100 times more efficient performance than other teams on average. It is the only way to create the best product in the market and to create real value for clients.
Q: Is it important to have a solid background in crypto to work for LATOKEN?
VP: Experience in the crypto world is always a plus. Many people from capital markets who understand how blockchain solves the double spending problem come to crypto with open eyes, with big interest. We appreciate such kind of people.
Q: What would you advise people looking to build something similar to LATOKEN?
VP: I think there are some people who have a big experience in capital markets, in tech entrepreneurship, who are capable to put together high performance teams to create something that will conquer the market. However, I think that current situation is not good enough to enter this space. It is already overcrowded. Users will always follow bigger liquidity. And there are already many big and popular exchanges. Anyway, we support all of the exchange projects which have strong teams and great plans to deliver real value. They can come to our launchpad or get their token listed for secondary trading on our platform.
Q: I believe that cryptocurrencies are going to replace fiat money entirely in the near future. What are your expectations on Bitcoin’s price? Which cryptocurrencies you think will lead apart from Bitcoin?
VP: I think that Bitcoin price will continue to decline as a lots of stablecoins are starting to be used globally for transborder transactions. Recently, $2 billions were used to buy stablecoins. This case have already affected the price of Bitcoin.
Q: The last question. Is Bitcoin going to be replaced by LA token?
VP: This opportunity is on the table. We’ll do our best to take advantage of it and make it happen.
