LAKE’s LAK3 Token Aims to Open Water Economy Access Without Tokenizing Water

LAKE’s proposal for using blockchain in the water industry rests on a distinction that matters: its token is intended to provide access to water-related activity, but it does not represent a fixed quantity of water. That model broadens the project’s idea of real-world assets (RWAs), while raising a practical question for anyone assessing it: what does access mean when the underlying resource is not represented directly by a token?

Laetitia Berthet, LAKE’s chief operating officer, describes the project as an ecosystem designed to connect people with water sources and the economy around them. The initiative combines LAKE, the platform, with LAK3, a cryptocurrency intended to serve as a means of exchange across the ecosystem. The project says it wants to make water-related opportunities available to individuals, alongside established businesses and other participants.

Opening participation in water markets

LAKE’s case begins with the structure of the existing water economy. According to Berthet, co-founder and CEO Jean Hugues saw a system in which a small number of large players hold substantial influence, leaving many people with limited ways to participate. The source article puts the global bottled-water market at $317 billion in 2023 and says it could exceed $500 billion by 2030. Those figures describe the market’s scale; they don’t establish how much of it LAKE could reach.

The project’s stated response is to connect supply and demand through a shared ecosystem, with LAK3 providing a borderless way to exchange value. Its aims include widening participation in water-related economic activity and encouraging more sustainable management. Whether the model can make access more equitable will depend on how the platform connects users to real sources, handles transactions and sustains participation in practice.

Berthet says one proposed mechanism is a community-to-business, or C2B, model. Individuals could participate collectively in large deals, which LAKE presents as an alternative to a conventional business-to-business process. In principle, this could let people take part in transactions that would otherwise be arranged between organizations. The source doesn’t provide details on how participants are grouped, what deal terms they would receive or how the arrangement would work in a specific transaction.

What blockchain adds—and what it doesn’t establish

LAKE points to smart contracts as a way to automate transactions and manage user rights, reducing the need for intermediaries and limiting opportunities for manipulation. It also says transactions, including purchases and donations, will be recorded on a public blockchain. Participants could inspect those records to see how activity was processed.

That visibility may help make transactions easier to audit, but a ledger can show what was recorded without independently proving every detail about a physical water source or delivery. LAKE’s model therefore depends on the relationship between on-chain records and information about off-chain resources. The interview describes the intended transparency, but doesn’t specify how source data is checked or who resolves disputes over it.

The project’s proposed Water Shop would let users choose springs rather than water brands. LAK3 holders are expected to receive information about listed sources, including their origins, composition, nutritional values, source type and water analysis. This could make source-level details more visible to buyers, though the source doesn’t explain the scope, verification process or update schedule for those records.

Access without representing a volume of water

LAKE argues that RWAs should cover digital tokens that represent or provide access to valuable things in the off-chain world. In its formulation, access can include goods, commodities, property or other assets, without requiring the asset itself to be tokenized. For LAKE, the relevant asset is water and the economic activity connected to it.

Under that framing, LAK3 holders may use the ecosystem to buy, sell, secure, donate or invest in water sources. Berthet stresses that a LAK3 token does not equal or represent a particular volume of water. That distinction is central: the proposal concerns participation in a water economy, rather than a claim that each token corresponds to a measured quantity of the resource.

For users, that makes the token’s function and the platform’s access rules important details. The interview describes several possible activities, but it doesn’t spell out the terms for each one, how rights attach to a source or what responsibilities a participant takes on. Those mechanics will help determine how the broader RWA definition works beyond the project’s description.

Why LAKE chose Polygon

LAKE says it built on Polygon for transaction speed, capacity and lower fees. The project views those features as relevant to a platform intended to support activity across different regions and participants. It also cites Polygon’s connection to Ethereum as part of the security foundation for its ecosystem.

Lower fees may matter when a platform wants to make transactions accessible to a wider group, while higher capacity can support more activity. The interview doesn’t give transaction costs, throughput figures or comparative performance data, so the stated reasons remain the project’s rationale rather than a measured comparison with other networks.

A first water access project in Senegal

LAKE says its first humanitarian effort took place in Senegal with Leeydi Men, a nonprofit that builds wells and supports education and reforestation. The two organizations constructed five wells in five villages in the Kaolack region. The initiative gives the project a concrete example of work tied to water access, although the source doesn’t report how many people the wells serve or how their long-term operation will be maintained.

That effort also illustrates the gap between a digital ecosystem and the physical work required to provide water. Blockchain records and tokens can organize participation and make some information visible; wells still depend on construction, upkeep and local coordination. LAKE’s next test is showing how those pieces connect, and whether its approach can make source information and water-related participation useful beyond the initial project.

Laetitia Berthet joined the Web3 industry in 2019 and has worked on projects focused on asset tokenization. More information about the project is available from LAKE. The source article cites the World Wildlife Fund’s overview of water scarcity, which reports that 2.7 billion people worldwide face water scarcity for at least one month each year and that 1.1 billion lack access to water.