Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are digital forms of a nation’s currency issued by central banks. They come in two main types: wholesale CBDCs for interbank transactions and retail CBDCs accessible to the public. The implementation of CBDCs, although lacking a uniform global framework, significantly enhances financial system efficiency by reducing cash handling costs, optimizing public bond issuance, and improving financial inclusion and anti-money laundering efforts. This movement is strongly tied to blockchain's influence, particularly in developed countries where maintaining monetary sovereignty is a primary driver.

Tokenization is the process of creating a digital representation (token) of an asset on a blockchain. These assets can range from real estate and art to data, identity, and financial instruments like treasuries or equities. A token signifies ownership and acts as a foundational element for various solutions.

Historically, it has been noted that as countries generate more wealth, the young and economically active population tends to become wage-employed, due to migration to urban areas and the growth of companies that generate jobs. In recent years, however, the economic recession that hit the world's largest economies, worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted in a transformation in the traditional job market, with the population of self-employed workers statistically surpassing that of salaried workers in many countries. This situation is in line with the current demographic transition and technological innovations that have been transforming the way we work. The confluence of these factors creates the so-called gig economy, the ongoing work trend that is shaping the future of work, characterized by flexibility.

Agricultural insurance is a powerful tool for protecting farmers against unexpected climate events. However, several challenges are hindering the market penetration in Brazil.  Despite being a major agricultural powerhouse, and the fourth biggest agricultural producer in the world, the country lags behind in agricultural insurance adoption when compared to other countries.

According to the American Institute of Economic Research, monetary premium correlates to the market's interest in assets capable of fulfilling the functions of money while maintaining value over time. In any society, the primary role of money is to serve as a medium of exchange. However, for a currency to gain widespread acceptance, it must either maintain value or appreciate over time. This ensures that holding the currency does not result in a loss of value. This principle explains why assets like gold remain relevant while currencies in hyperinflationary economies lose significance.

In February 2021, the Brazilian Open Banking initiative later rebranded to Open Finance, started its first phase. Three years later, more than 56 billion clients/transactional data API calls were made, and more than 28 million people consented to share their data. Despite these impressive numbers, one question remains: Has the Brazilian Open Finance Succeeded? Spoiler alert, not yet!

Blockchain is still a nascent technology, and as such, many problems are associated with user experience (UX), with there being some major problems that need to be addressed that we will discuss in this article. Lack of friendly User Interfaces (UI), language, lack of standardization, complexity, key management, and security are some of these issues.

In order to reach mass adoption, blockchain must be regulated. Without proper regulation, industry players are forced to operate in a gray zone, in which what's legal or illegal is unclear. In this environment, an adverse selection effect takes place; malicious players can thrive by exploiting the lack of rules and lack of comprehension of risks from clients, while well-intentioned players and big institutions are kept outside or operate in a restricted way, losing competitiveness.

Infrastructure scalability is arguably the most pressing problem in the Blockchain industry. Even though security and UX are big issues, the ability to handle high transactional volumes is key to growth. The current infrastructure is unprepared to deal with the rise of dApps, and crypto games.