Inside Priority Token: AI, Tokenization, and the Future of Web3 Investing

As digital assets mature, the focus is moving away from speculation toward financial infrastructure, where tokenization, on-chain finance, and AI-driven crypto models are no longer just concepts. They are changing the way capital is structured, distributed, and deployed across diverse markets. 

Within this context, firms that work at the intersection of finance, technology, and regulation are becoming important actors in the industry. 

Priority Token is one of them. Over nearly a decade, the firm has evolved from a crypto fundraising advisory into a full-stack Web3 partner, working across tokenomics, legal structuring, investor relations, and real-world asset tokenization.

About what metrics actually matter in evaluating AI-driven crypto projects, and why the future of capital markets may depend less on speculation and more on the infrastructure – read in the interview with the CEO of Priority Token, Viktor Larionov.

You’ve been building Priority Token for nearly 9 years. How has the firm evolved, and what’s the current focus of PToken Ventures’ investment thesis?

When we started, Priority Token was much more focused on classic crypto fundraising support: packaging a project properly, building the docs, fixing tokenomics, opening investor doors, and helping teams not embarrass themselves in front of the market. We also invested in a bunch of projects as the syndicate back in the days. Over time, that naturally expanded, because founders rarely need just one thing. They need the legal wrapper, the story, the fundraising process, the investor access, and, later the market support. So, today, PToken is much closer to a full-stack Web3 growth and capital partner than a narrow agency. Publicly, we position around fundraising, tokenomics, legal structuring, marketing, investor relations, and RWA tokenization, and the firm has grown into a broader international setup with offices including Zurich/Zug, London, Dubai, Seoul, and Melbourne. 

For PToken Ventures specifically, the thesis today is more selective than it was a few years ago. We still look at seed and pre-seed, but we care much more about whether a project can survive outside pure narrative momentum. That means AI-adjacent crypto, where there is actual product pull, and RWA or on-chain finance projects where the legal structure, primary distribution, and secondary liquidity have been thought through from day one. Our experience working out of Zug was important here. Switzerland teaches you very quickly that serious capital does not just buy a nice deck. It wants structure, compliance, good distribution, and a believable path to liquidity. That is still how we look at the market. 

At PToken, what are the most critical valuation metrics you consider when assessing AI agents or adjacent crypto projects?

The first thing we do is separate “AI with a token attached” from something that actually solves a repeatable problem. For AI agents, I care much more about usage quality than vanity traction. Are users coming back without being “bribed”? Is the agent doing something frequently enough to become a habit? What is revenue per user or per task? What is the cost to serve that task? How quickly is the product improving, and how much of the demand is organic versus paid? If retention is weak and the product still needs constant narrative support, the valuation should stay humble.

Then on the crypto side, I care about value capture and market structure. Who actually accrues value: the token, the equity, the treasury, or nobody? What does the circulating supply look like versus the fully diluted supply? How much selling pressure is built in? Is there a real need for a token in the workflow, or is it just there because crypto investors expect one? And very practically, we still stress-test the same basics we use in fundraising: documentation, legal readiness, product maturity, team quality, community, and distribution. A lot of teams look expensive simply because they are good at storytelling. That is not enough for us anymore. 

Discussions around “Stablecoin yield” have generated controversy between US banks and the cryptocurrency sector. Do you expect on-chain bank deposits to influence capital reallocation from TradFi into cryptocurrencies, at scale?

Yes, but I think people sometimes frame it the wrong way. The first big reallocation is not from bank deposits straight into volatile crypto. It is from old payment and treasury rails into on-chain cash instruments. Tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins are simply more programmable, more portable, and better suited for cross-border settlement and on-chain financial workflows. You can already see major institutions and regulators leaning into this direction: Singapore’s Project Guardian is working on tokenized funds and tokenized deposits, Hong Kong is pushing Project Ensemble further in 2026 to support tokenized deposit settlement, and Swiss banks are now testing a regulated Swiss franc stablecoin sandbox.

Where the fight gets real is yield. US banks have openly argued that yield-bearing stablecoin structures could pull deposits away from the banking system, and the policy debate has basically become a debate about whether third-party rewards are interest in disguise. So yes, some capital will move. But in my view, the bigger shift is not people suddenly abandoning TradFi for crypto speculation. It is that once money itself sits on-chain in a regulated form, the distance between TradFi and crypto becomes much smaller. At that point, reallocating into tokenized funds, on-chain credit, or even broader crypto exposure becomes operationally much easier. 

What’s the best strategy to bring assets on-chain in current market conditions? What assets are worth bringing on-chain?

Right now, the best strategy is honestly the least sexy one: start with assets that already make economic sense before tokenization, such as property, metals, etc. If the cash flow is clear, the legal rights are clear, and there is investor demand already, then blockchain can improve access, settlement, distribution, and, in some cases, liquidity. If none of that exists, tokenization does not fix the asset. It just puts a digital wrapper around a weak product. That is why we usually think about the process in three linked parts: legal enforceability, primary distribution, and secondary liquidity. Miss one of those, and you do not really have a market. 

The assets that also make the most sense today are short-duration fixed income, Treasuries, money-market-style products, private credit, trade finance receivables, invoice-backed structures, and selected fund products. That is also where a lot of the real traction is visible now: RWA.xyz shows tokenized Treasuries and tokenized credit as two of the deepest categories on-chain, with overall tokenized asset value still growing into 2026. 

Real estate can work too, but only when people are disciplined. Income-producing, professionally managed, institution-grade real estate can be brought on-chain well. Random land plots, trophy assets, or speculative developments are much harder because valuation is fuzzy, and secondary liquidity is usually fake. In current market conditions, I would much rather tokenize something boring that cash-flows and can actually be distributed well than something exciting that nobody can exit. That is especially true if you want serious capital rather than just retail noise.

With your experience working across multiple jurisdictions, what countries are currently ahead in terms of asset tokenization, regulations, adoption, and capital allocation?

If I look at actual execution, not just conference talk, Switzerland is still right near the top. It has legal clarity, a deep crypto-native ecosystem, and real financial market infrastructure for tokenized assets through SDX. FINMA is also still actively refining guidance around crypto-asset custody, which matters because serious tokenization always comes back to safeguarding and investor protection. Singapore is in that same top group for me because MAS has been methodical: Project Guardian is not just slogans, it is an institutional framework for testing tokenized funds, deposits, and related market infrastructure. 

From our side, Switzerland has been especially valuable because Zug gives you a rare combination: credibility with investors, workable structuring, and proximity to capital. We have had good experience incorporating and fundraising from there, and for serious RWA projects, that still matters a lot. In practice, the jurisdictions that are ahead today are the ones that understand tokenization is not only a tech story. It is legal architecture, distribution, and liquidity all at once.