The Power Shift: When Economic Digitization Redefines Sovereignty

By: Pablo Rutigliano

CEO & Founder – Atómico 3

President – Latin American Chamber of Lithium

For centuries, power was explained from the territory. Geography, natural resources, borders, and physical sovereignty defined who dominated and who depended. However, we are entering a historical stage where that logic begins to mutate. Power is no longer explained solely by the territory one possesses, but by the capacity to transform that territory into traceable economic value. The mutation of power is called economic digitalization.

The traditional economic architecture, based on opaque, fragmented, and often untraceable structures, faces a structural limit. The current world demands something that did not exist before as a central condition of power: traceability. Without traceability, there is no trust. Without trust, there is no investment. Without investment, there is no development. And without development, the territory becomes an empty promise.

Tokenization appears in this scenario not as a technological fad, but as the critical infrastructure of the new economy. Tokenizing is not digitalizing superficially; it is converting an asset, a resource, a value chain, or a productive structure into a verifiable, auditable, and traceable unit of information. It is moving power from opacity toward structural transparency.

In this new model, power no longer resides solely in who possesses the territory, but in who controls the tokenization architecture. Who defines how value is represented, how it is registered, how it is verified, and how it is integrated into global markets. Tokenization becomes the new center of gravity of economic power.

The history of humanity can be read as a sequence of mutations of power. In prehistory, power was fire. Whoever controlled fire controlled survival. Fire allowed for hunting, feeding, organizing tribes, and establishing hierarchies. Fire was humanity's first strategic asset.

Then came land, metals, trade routes, currency, industry, energy, information. Each stage redefined power. Each technological revolution shifted the center of gravity of dominance. Today we are facing a mutation comparable to those: the transition from territorial power to digital power.

The problem is not the natural resource. Argentina, Latin America, and much of the world possess extraordinary strategic resources: lithium, copper, gold, gas, water, biodiversity, productive lands. The problem is that those resources are not integrated into a traceable value architecture. They are not tokenized. They are not structured within a model that allows the resource to be transformed into capital.

A territory without capital is a motionless territory. A resource without traceability is a resource invisible to the global market. An economy without tokenization is an economy condemned to undervaluation.

Sovereignty in the 21st century is no longer measured solely by territorial extension or by the flag that flies over a resource. It is measured by the capacity to economically structure that resource within a global digital system. Without that capacity, sovereignty is formal, but it is not effective.

Tokenization introduces a disruptive idea: value is not defined by the territory, but by the capacity to represent that territory in a digital language understandable to global markets. In that language, the token becomes the fundamental unit of value.

But not just any token. Not the speculative token, not the traditional financial token, but the non-negotiable token, the token as a representation of a real, traceable, documented, audited asset. A token that does not promise income, but rather explains an economic reality. A token that does not replace the asset, but translates it.

In this sense, tokenization is not a threat to sovereignty, but its evolution. Because a non-tokenized resource is a vulnerable resource. A tokenized resource is a resource integrated into the global value system.

The paradox is evident: we can have the territory, but if we do not have the digital architecture to value it, others will value it for us. We can have the lithium, but if we do not have the traceability infrastructure, others will define its price, its narrative, and its destination. We can have the resource, but without tokenization, we do not have the power.

The digital economy does not replace the real economy. It amplifies it. It structures it. It orders it. It makes it visible. It makes it investable. It makes it scalable.

Traceability is the new fire. Whoever controls traceability controls the power. Because traceability defines what exists, what it is worth, what can be financed, what can be insured, what can be commercialized. Without traceability, the resource is scattered data. With traceability, the resource becomes an asset.

Tokenization is the bridge between the physical world and the digital world. It is the infrastructure that allows a natural resource to stop being a potentiality and become an economic structure.

We are living, perhaps without fully understanding it, through the prehistory of natural resources in digital terms. Just as primitive man did not understand the reach of fire, societies today do not fully understand the reach of tokenization.

The resistance is not technological, it is cultural. Traditional models of power resist losing control of opacity. Because opacity is power in the old model. Transparency is power in the new model.

The mutation of power is not optional. It is inevitable.

Economic digitalization is not just another tool. It is the new architecture of power. In this scenario, the countries that understand the logic of tokenization will not only develop their resources but will redefine their position in the global system.

Territory will continue to be important. But it will no longer be enough.

Sovereignty will continue to be relevant. But it will no longer be absolute.

The resource will continue to be strategic. But it will no longer be decisive.

What will be decisive is the capacity to tokenize, to trace, to structure, to translate the physical world into the digital language of value.

In that translation, the future of economies, States, and societies is at stake.

The mutation of power has already begun. And its name is economic digitalization.