The convergence of neo-banking and the gig economy represents a significant shift in the future of work and finance, reshaping how individuals manage their financial lives in an increasingly digital and decentralized economy. This research article investigates the intersections between neo-banking, a digital-only banking model, and the gig economy, focusing on how neo-banks are addressing the unique financial challenges faced by gig workers. Unlike traditional employment, gig work often involves irregular income, lack of employer-provided benefits, and limited access to financial services. Neo-banks, with their technology-driven, customer-centric approach, are emerging as key players in providing tailored financial solutions such as flexible accounts, real-time payments, income-smoothing tools, and low-cost international transfers. These innovations are particularly relevant for gig workers, who require greater financial flexibility and accessibility. The research highlights the economic and social implications of neo-banking for the gig economy, including its role in promoting financial inclusion, reducing barriers to financial access, and empowering workers to better manage their finances. However, the study also identifies potential risks, such as over-reliance on digital platforms, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and regulatory challenges that could hinder the sustainable growth of neo-banking in this context. Furthermore, the article explores the broader implications of this intersection for the future of work and finance. It argues that neo-banks are not only transforming how gig workers interact with financial systems but also influencing the broader financial ecosystem by driving innovation and competition. The findings suggest that while neo-banks are well-positioned to support the evolving needs of the gig economy, collaboration among regulators, traditional banks, and fintech companies is crucial to address systemic risks and ensure equitable access to financial services. This research contributes to the growing body of literature on digital finance and labor economics, offering actionable insights for policymakers, financial institutions, and gig workers. By examining the synergies and challenges at the intersection of neo-banking and the gig economy, the article provides a comprehensive understanding of how digital financial solutions can support the future of work in an increasingly fragmented and dynamic labor market.
.This critical review evaluates the article “Factors Influencing Blockchain Adoption in the Tourism Industry: An Empirical Study,” focusing on its scientific quality, theoretical foundations, methodology, empirical findings, and contribution to the literature. The review examines the formulation of the research problem, the integration of the HOT-fit and TOE frameworks with sustainability dimensions, the application of PLS-SEM, and the interpretation of the study’s findings. It also identifies the article’s main strengths and limitations and assesses its theoretical and practical relevance to blockchain adoption, digital transformation, innovation management, and tourism research.
Purpose This paper aims to investigate how brands emerge and acquire value in decentralized digital ecosystems and examines the role of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on social media in shaping their market interest and valuation. Design/methodology/approach The research design considers two studies: one exploratory, based on interviews with Web3 experts and the other on econometric analysis of data from X (13 million tweets relating to 7 Web3-native brands) and OpenSea (315 million nonfungible token [NFT] transactions). Findings The findings show that brand value formation in decentralized environments rests on three layers: an asset-based value layer, a network-based value layer and a marketplace-based value layer. The research demonstrates that both the volume and valence of eWOM independently influence consumer awareness, desirability and the value or price of NFT-based brands in the marketplace. However, their interaction, or an excessively positive eWOM, can have a counterproductive effect, signaling hype and reducing perceived credibility in speculative digital markets. Research limitations/implications The research contributes to the emerging Web3 literature by proposing an empirical framework for decentralized brand value formation in digital ecosystems. The framework captures how brand value is generated and how eWOM and marketplace trading and activities influence this value in decentralized environments. However, the analysis is based on seven Web3 native brands and on data gathered in the context of a bull market. Practical implications The study offers brand managers empirical insights into branding in decentralized ecosystems. It provides operational strategies for decision-makers who are seeking to develop effective branding strategies in emerging decentralized marketplaces. Social implications The study shows that decentralized branding empowers users and online communities to shape Web3 brand value. Originality/value The study contributes to the growing understanding of decentralized branding by showing how brand value and eWOM dynamics shape brand creation in decentralized and speculative markets. It shows that digital discourse can simultaneously function as a mechanism of brand amplification and as a potential signal of speculative overvaluation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study that proposes an empirical investigation of the value of decentralized branding and its relation to eWOM.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to apply the integration of signaling theory and self-congruity theory to explain the mechanism by which blockchain-enabled traceability and transparency influence consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for sustainable fashion products. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data was collected through an online survey with 622 participants in Vietnam using snowball sampling. The participants were those who had awareness or experience with sustainable fashion and blockchain technology. The research model and hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) techniques using SmartPLS 4 software. Findings The study found that blockchain signals strongly activate four types of symbolic meanings (status, environment, innovation and fashion). These symbolic meanings reinforce identification with personal identity and feelings of brand authenticity, which in turn promote willingness to pay a premium. Notably, the results showed that hyperopia did not play a moderating role in the relationships between psychological mechanisms and willingness to pay a premium. Originality/value This study contributes by extending signaling theory and self-congruity theory to a blockchain-enabled sustainable fashion context. Rather than proposing a fundamentally new psychological mechanism, it shows how blockchain-based traceability and transparency can function as credibility-enhancing signals that activate established symbolic, identity-related and authenticity-based processes associated with willingness to pay a premium.
Environmental Sustainability in Business
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Sai Srikanth Madugula, Peplluis Esteva De La Rosa, Daya Shankar
The rapid proliferation of Agentic Artificial Intelligence fundamentally disrupts traditional customer loyalty paradigms. As AI evolves from passive recommendation algorithms to autonomous, goal-directed agents capable of executing purchasing decisions, the conventional understanding of consumer-brand relationships requires a structural reevaluation. By synthesizing extant literature across human-machine teaming, consumer decision-making, and algorithmic trust dynamics, we demonstrate that traditional loyalty models fail to account for algorithmic bounded rationality and constructed autonomy. To address this, we introduce the Dynamic Verifiable Multi-Agent Human Agentic Loyalty Loop (DVM-HALL) model. We formalize brand choice via a softmax probability formulation where human emotional equity, agentic machine-experience utility, calibrated trust, delegated authority, and verifiable execution jointly determine selection. The model features recursive updating mechanisms to dynamically calibrate trust and delegation after each interaction. Crucially, the framework integrates a verifiable execution layer for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and tokenized loyalty settings, incorporating execution risks -- such as gas costs, slippage, MEV exposure, and smart-contract vulnerabilities -- as core predictors of agentic brand preference. Furthermore, we introduce the Net Human-Agent Score (NHAS), an auditable, risk-weighted metric designed to measure human-agent alignment using human feedback, execution logs, benchmark comparisons, and verifiable receipts. Finally, we propose a comprehensive three-stage empirical validation plan spanning controlled shopping experiments, multi-agent market simulations, and DeFi testbeds. This framework provides the foundational theory required for brands to navigate the impending transition toward machine customers.
The rapid rise of Web3 technologies, representing the third phase of the internet, is creating a decentralized ecosystem that grants users ownership and control. Concurrently, metaverse platforms supported by virtual and augmented reality technologies signify the emergence of persistent, shared digital universes where users interact through digital avatars. These developments necessitate significant changes in consumer rights and protections within digital marketing processes. While decentralized structures and blockchain-based systems enhance user data sovereignty, they also require the development of novel governance and financial frameworks. In this context, existing legal instruments—particularly the European Union’s Digital Services Act, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission guidelines, and the OECD Principles on Digital Economy—are insufficient to address the technological complexities and dynamic evolution of Web3 and metaverse ecosystems. Notable regulatory gaps persist in key areas, including data security, informed user consent, algorithmic transparency, and digital identity governance. Moreover, the marketing of blockchain-based financial instruments such as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Non-Fungible Tokens introduces new vectors of consumer risk and legal ambiguity, exacerbating market volatility. The opacity of algorithm-driven marketing and the potential for covert manipulation in AI-powered personalization further erode consumer trust and undermine market integrity. To ensure robust consumer protection in the digital marketing landscape, legal and regulatory frameworks must align with ongoing technological innovation. This includes mandatory implementation of algorithmic explainability standards, establishment of transparent and accountable governance mechanisms for DAOs, and development of enforceable contractual norms and minimum information disclosure requirements in NFT transactions. Furthermore, comprehensive digital literacy initiatives and consumer awareness programs are essential to mitigate emerging risks while optimizing the inclusive potential of Web3 technologies. These policy measures are crucial to safeguarding consumer rights and fostering sustainable trust within the evolving digital marketing ecosystem through 2025 and beyond.
The quick progress of the gig economy and the appearance of digital nomadism have transformed traditional employment and financial ecosystems, increasing reliance on digital financial services. FinTech modernizations, including movable banking, digital cases, blockchain technologies, and decentralized finance, have significantly enhanced admittance to financial facilities. However, the extent to which these innovations contribute to meaningful financial inclusion remains a critical area of inquiry. This study presents a wide-ranging analysis of poetry examining the part of FinTech in enhancing financial inclusion among digital nomads. Using a narrative review approach, the study synthesizes research across themes such as ordinal finance embracing, financial literacy, gig economy dynamics, and platform-based monetary amenities. The verdicts signpost that while FinTech improves accessibility and efficiency, tests such as regulatory barriers, trust deficits, financial literacy gaps, and cross-border complexities persist. The study highlights the need for integrating technological, behavioral, and policy perspectives to achieve inclusive financial systems. The review contributes to the literature by providing a multidimensional understanding of FinTech-enabled inclusion and offers inferences for representatives, financial establishments, and gig workers.
Strategic alliances have long required their participants to combine the certainty of formal contracts with the adaptive flexibility of relational mechanisms, and the substitutes-complements debate in alliance governance has spent decades trying to clarify how these two qualities can be combined.The recent emergence of blockchain-enabled smart contracts complicates this picture in interesting ways.This article asks how smart contracts interact with the contractual and relational governance mechanisms documented in the strategic alliance literature, what conditions shape this interaction, and what the implications are for alliance theory.Drawing on the alliance governance literature and the blockchain governance literature in roughly equal measure, the paper develops a framework that positions smart contracts as a third governance mechanism alongside contractual and relational forms, producing a hybrid arrangement termed algorithmic-relational governance.Three propositions are derived and illustrated through a case study of Walmart Canada's DL Freight platform, one of the larger production-grade smart contract deployments in a multi-party alliance setting.The findings suggest that smart contracts function primarily as governance complements rather than substitutes, that they alter alliance dynamics in ways transaction cost economics alone cannot predict, and that their effectiveness depends on deliberate architectural design choices that are themselves products of relational negotiation between alliance partners.
This paper discusses the technological development from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0, focusing on their corresponding economic models. The study begins by analyzing the Web 1.0 portal economy, followed by an in-depth exploration of the rise of the Web 2.0 platform economy and its associated challenges, including the lemon market, platform monopolies, price discrimination, and algorithmic asymmetries. To address those issues, this study elaborates on the Web 3.0 token economy and emphasizes the crucial role of decentralized technologies like blockchain in bringing new production factors and relationships. This inspires the proposal of the Decentralized Economy (DeEco), a novel user-autonomous economic model that integrates advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies with blockchain. Furthermore, the key techniques for formulating DeEco are analyzed, including Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Operations (DAOs), Decentralized Value Systems (DVSs), Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and digital humans. This study not only offers a co-evolutionary perspective of web technologies and economic forms but also introduces an innovative economic paradigm to support open, diverse and intelligent societies.
In this article, we focus on personal data management in service exchange networks, where members meet each other to share services based on their skills. Through the case study of the Accorderie (a Quebec solidarity cooperative), we propose an innovative protocol designed to reinforce the confidentiality of data relative to members’ addresses and service intervention locations. Using distributed ledger and peer-to-peer interaction, our proposal minimizes the Accorderie’s direct involvement while keeping its position as a trusted authority, allowing members to engage in direct interactions without reliance on a centralized platform. We present three versions of private set membership protocols specially designed to manage locations in the sharing economy. Finally, our findings suggest that decentralized solutions could be a relevant support for solidarity communities, in particular by enhancing member privacy and security, but also by facilitating and reducing maintenance costs.
The profile of blockchain-based technologies such as collectable non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has ascended rapidly in recent years. This ascent is evident by major sponsorships of sporting teams, leagues and stadiums, licencing deals, NFT ‘drops’, and advertising campaigns. This article explains and analyses these complex and fast-changing developments using a political economy of communication approach that is linked to the field of leisure studies. It draws on the trade press as a key source of evidence, thereby revealing the ‘storylines’ used by industry to construct and legitimate NFTs as a consumer product. We argue that this process relies on legitimating practices and discourses that function to transmogrify the unfamiliar – blockchain technologies and NFTs in this case – into the familiar, despite the many problems associated with them, including company failures, suspect advertising practices, and intellectual property infringement. This is achieved by the presentation of NFTs as collectable fan tokens, linking them discursively to a long history of sport collectables as a hobby and form of leisure (e.g. physical trading cards, athlete autographs and memorabilia). The overall outcome is a deeply problematic vision of leisure for collectors as their practices are subject to ever-expanding financialisation, digital enclosure and uncertain value.
The global gig economy has witnessed exponential growth, contributing significantly to the digital labor market. However, traditional centralized freelancing platforms (e.g., Upwork, Fiverr) are plagued by high intermediary fees (up to 20%), delayed settlements, and opaque dispute resolution mechanisms. This paper presents a comprehensive review of blockchain based alternatives, analyzing the efficacy of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in mitigating these centralization bottlenecks. We critically examine existing smart contract based escrow mechanisms and identify key challenges in scalability and user adoption. Based on this review, we propose “Delance,” a hybrid Web3 architecture that utilizes the Polygon network to minimize gas fees while ensuring instant, trustless settlements. Comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed architecture reduces transaction costs by 98% compared to traditional Web2 platforms, validating the feasibility of a decentralized freelance ecosystem.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been studied mainly as a financial and technological system, while the role of digital entrepreneurial capability in shaping sustainable user traction remains underexplored. This study repositions DeFi as a digitally mediated entrepreneurial ecosystem and examines whether retention-oriented user behavior is associated with three capability dimensions—entrepreneurial visibility, network embeddedness, and organic acquisition efficiency—together with ecosystem-finance conditions such as total value locked and decentralized-exchange activity. Using an exploratory, correlational design with monthly aggregated data from five incumbent DeFi platforms during the post-FTX recovery period (October 2022–September 2023), the analysis combines canonical correlation analysis, partial least squares regression, and ridge regression. Results indicate a significant multivariate association between ecosystem-finance conditions and the entrepreneurial-capability block, and show that returning-visitor behavior is more coherently linked to the predictor set than broad visitor inflow. Entrepreneurial Visibility Capital and Network Embeddedness emerge as the most stable positive correlates of user retention, while Organic Acquisition Efficiency shows a directionally mixed pattern. Because the sample is small, the findings are interpreted as preliminary evidence rather than confirmatory claims. Overall, the study offers an integrative framework that connects DeFi, digital entrepreneurship, and sustainability-oriented business-model research, and identifies the joint configuration of digital capability and financial conditions as a promising direction for future, larger-scale investigation.
Sports non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have rapidly emerged as tradable digital goods within platform-mediated marketplaces, reshaping how sports organizations, athletes, and brands design fan experiences and monetize digital assets. To consolidate fragmented scholarship and clarify the concept space, this study conducts a systematic quantitative literature review combined with thematic analysis, following PRISMA 2020 and a SPIDER-guided review logic. Searches across six major databases (Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, ProQuest) plus Google Scholar (2017–March 2025) yielded 40 peer-reviewed studies that met predefined inclusion criteria and passed quality appraisal. Results show a sharp growth of sports-NFT research from 2021 to 2024, with strong inter-disciplinary convergence spanning sports marketing, information systems, computer science, and law. Integrating findings through a consumer-value lens, we inductively propose a five-type taxonomy—collectible, empowerment, identity/authentication, physical-asset linked, and virtual-interaction NFTs—each associated with distinct value mechanisms and e-commerce functionalities. The thematic synthesis further identifies four dominant research streams (industry digitalization, consumer psychology/behavior, legal–regulatory issues, and digital marketing), while revealing gaps in theory operationalization, method diversity (e.g., limited experiments/longitudinal designs), cross-context generalizability, and governance/sustainability. The study contributes to marketing and management scholarship by positioning sports NFTs as emerging technologies that reorganize customer engagement, brand-community building, and governance in platform-mediated sport markets, and it offers a research agenda for measuring consumer, brand, and organizational effects.
Transaction selection in parallel or DAG-based distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) is a crucial challenge that directly impacts throughput, fairness, and validator incentives. In these systems, validators independently choose transactions to include in their blocks, often relying on naive heuristics like uniform or proportional selection. This can lead to inefficient outcomes when validators prioritize their own rewards without considering collective impacts. We analyze two fee allocation mechanisms used in practice: Random Fee Allocation (RFA), where transaction fees are randomly assigned to one validator, and Collaborative Fee Sharing (CFS), where fees are distributed equally among all validators. Using a single-shot game-theoretic framework, we derive symmetric Nash equilibria (NE) for selecting transactions for both mechanisms and propose an optimization-based method to compute these equilibria. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the NE of CFS consistently achieves higher throughput and rewards compared to the NE of RFA, particularly under skewed fee distributions. Additionally, we compare these equilibrium strategies to naive benchmarks (uniform and proportional selection), showing that the proportional strategy outperforms the NE of RSA in many situations. These findings may provide actionable insights into the design of transaction selection and incentive mechanisms, enabling more robust and high-performance DAG-based DLTs.
The metaverse presents the fashion industry with unprecedented commercial possibilities, yet its transnational, decentralized, and jurisdictionally indeterminate architecture demands measured and deliberate engagement from brands, consumers, and regulators alike. This thesis contends that a sustainable and equitable trajectory is contingent upon the principled alignment of intellectual property protections, regulatory frameworks, and consumer rights. Existing intellectual property doctrine proves structurally inadequate to govern digital goods, non-fungible tokens, and virtual assets within an environment defined by interoperability failures, traceability deficits, pseudonymous transactional infrastructure, and the foundational decentralization of blockchain-based platforms. The governance imperative extends well beyond the protection of incumbent commercial interests. Coherent metaversal intellectual property frameworks carry profound social, cultural, and institutional significance – safeguarding cultural communities from digital appropriation, redressing the informational asymmetries embedded in smart contract transactions, and cultivating the conditions under which independent digital creativity can flourish without systematic disadvantage. This thesis maintains that effective governance cannot merely analogize from conventional intellectual property frameworks to virtual environments, nor can it simply transpose the enforcement paradigms developed for the early internet onto a space that is architecturally, commercially, and experientially distinct. It must instead navigate the compounding doctrinal challenges of omniterritoriality, platform interoperability, pseudonymous traceability, and structural decentralization. The progressive blurring of physical and virtual extended realities will require genuine global multilateral partnership, coordinated intergovernmental engagement, and a willingness to treat the governance architecture of the metaverse as a problem of institutional design rather than doctrinal extrapolation. Most critically, the framework must be prospective rather than reactive, internationally coordinated rather than territorially fragmented, and constitutively embedded with values of equity, access, and transparency as foundational commitments from which the architecture of metaverse IP governance is built – and against which its legitimacy will ultimately be measured.
Yield-Aggregatoren automatisieren den Prozess des Yield-Farming im Bereich des Decentralized Finance (DeFi), indem sie Nutzerkapital bündeln und über verschiedene Protokolle hinweg einsetzen, um Renditen zu optimieren. Aufgrund ihrer hohen Komplexität sind ihre Funktionsweisen jedoch schwer nachzuvollziehen, und die Forschung zu ihren internen Mechanismen sowie den Interaktionen mit anderen Protokollen ist bislang begrenzt. Diese Arbeit adressiert diese Forschungslücke durch die Analyse zweier Ethereum-basierter Yield-Aggregatoren: Yearn Finance und Cian Yield Layer. Hierzu wurden Blockchain-Daten über einen Zeitraum von einem Jahr (4. Mai 2024 bis 3. Mai 2025) erhoben und ausgewertet, bestehend aus 2.459 Yearn-Transaktionen mit 5.575 Token-Transfers sowie 921 Cian-Transaktionen mit 1.963 Token-Transfers. Die Arbeit kombiniert eine operative Analyse, eine Netzwerkanalyse der Kapitalflüsse und einen Vergleich der Plattformmerkmale. Die Ergebnisse zeigen unterschiedliche Strategien: Yearn investiert Kapital überwiegend in Lending-Protokolle, indem es Liquidität zur Verfügung stellt, während Cian auf gehebeltes, rekursives Staking unter Einsatz von Flash-Loans setzt, um Restaking-Erträge zu erhöhen. Yearn hat eine breite Nutzerbasis mit vergleichsweise kleinen Einzeltransaktionen, während Cian eine kleinere Nutzerbasis besitzt, die von einem höheren Anteil großer Einzahlungen geprägt ist. Auf Grundlage der Analyse wurde ein konzeptionelles Modell entwickelt, das aus zwei miteinander verbundenen Lebenszyklen besteht: dem User-Lifecycle (Einzahlungen, Halteperiode, Auszahlungen) und dem Strategy-Management-Lifecycle (Kapitalallokation, Strategieausführung, Umschichtung). Dieses Modell erfasst die grundlegenden ökonomischen Funktionen von Yield-Aggregatoren unabhängig von ihrer technischen Implementierung. Die Arbeit liefert empirische Einblicke in die Funktionsweise von Yield-Aggregatoren, identifiziert DeFi-Protokolle als Investitionsziele und stellt ein konzeptionelles Modell zum Verständnis der Mechanismen von Yield-Aggregatoren vor.
Konduri S P S Narayana Murthy, Tirumala Anand Kumar, R.Nivedha, B Balasaigayathri
In this paper, I introduce a decentralized freelancing site that combines blockchain-based smart-contract escrow with AI-based matching of talents to improve the level of trust, transparency, and efficiency in digital labor markets. Conventional freelancing models make use of centralized middlemen, which introduce vulnerability to the system in the form of payment conflicts, recommendations of jobs, manipulation of data and single point failure. The suggested system will resolve these concerns by implementing an unchanging Ethereum smart-contract escrow, which automates the processes of hiring, funds locking, and milestone payments without the involvement of third parties. The hybrid backend application with FastAPI, the SQLite data store, and the Web3 interaction provides the security of the requests processing and the state of the contract retrieval in real-time. Also, there is an AI ranking module with TF-IDF vectorization and cosine similarity that offers personalized matching of freelancers and jobs based on skill-relevant and experience characteristics. An up-to-date React/Tailwind frontend provides an easy user flow of posting jobs, hiring freelancers, depositing escrow funds, and approving task completion. Experimental analysis using live contract deployment shows that the transparency of transactions is more optimal, the probability of dispute is lower, and the accuracy of the matching is much higher. This site is an example of how the next-generation decentralized freelance ecosystems can be practiced.
This research article examines how distributed ledger technology (DLT) can enhance modern-day economies and the mechanisms that enable this emerging technology to sustain them in the long term. The mission of this study is to educate a diverse group of economic leaders, encompassing government agencies and private companies, about DLT and its potential to shape the future. This study analyzes secondary qualitative data to show that DLT can enhance and sustain economies in multiple ways, specifically through the three pillars of modern-day economies: central banks, commercial banks, and land registry systems. More specifically, the architectural mechanisms of DLT reduce moral hazard arising from centralized economic authorities, increase the efficiency of financial services and money movements, and lower the costs of financial services that can be passed on to consumers. Further benefits include the creation of new jobs, new industries, a new asset class, and renewed industries through the adoption of this new infrastructure, thereby expanding markets by building strong foundations for economies to grow through immutable land records, and building trustless networks worldwide.
This paper emphasizes the critical role of interoperability in enabling efficient and secure communication for the fragmented distributed ledger ecosystem, particularly within on-chain finance. The purpose of this study is to streamline and accelerate empirical research on the intersection of cross-chain interoperability solutions and their impact within on-chain finance. The analysis examines the relationship between financial use and interoperability while comparing the properties of novel cross-chain interoperability protocols (LayerZero, Wormhole, Connext, Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, Circle Cross-chain Transfer Protocol, Hop Protocol, Across, Polkadot, and Cosmos), focusing on their design, mechanisms, consensus, and limitations. To encourage further empirical study, the paper proposes a set of network metrics and sample statistical models and provides a framework for evaluating the performance and financial implications of interoperability solutions.
This paper analyzes the reconfiguration of business models in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem under the aegis of informational capitalism 4.0.It investigates the paradigmatic transition from restricted innovation to models of open innovation and algorithm-mediated co-creation, based on a new regime of mathematical trust.From a socio-technological perspective, it discusses the tensions between protocol autonomy and state regulation, identifying the challenges that algorithmic governance and social datafication pose to monetary sovereignty and ethics in the technology sector.It is concluded that the success of DeFi depends on the balance between radical decentralization and governance mechanisms that prevent the concentration of power, especially in the context of Latin American development.
Introduction: Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly reshaping hospitality by automating frontline and back-of-house processes, augmenting service encounters, and expanding the analytical scope of revenue management. Yet, existing research remains fragmented: service-robot studies largely emphasize adoption and human-robot interaction, while revenue-management research prioritizes pricing and distribution, sustainability research focuses on environmental practices, and hotel real-estate scholarship foregrounds governance and asset value. Meanwhile, blockchain technologies-through distributed ledgers, smart contracts, digital identity, and tokenization-offer a complementary trust and value-transfer layer that can address coordination and verification problems across hotel ecosystems (e.g., data sharing, sustainability claims, and owner-operator contracting). Methods: Drawing on an integrative literature synthesis, this conceptual article develops an integrative framework linking AI-robotics and blockchain capabilities to three interdependent hotel decision domains: (1) revenue management (demand forecasting, dynamic/open pricing, channel and loyalty optimization), (2) sustainability and operations (resource optimization, waste circularity, predictive maintenance), and (3) real estate and hotel asset management (digital twins, CapEx planning, valuation and risk analytics, and tokenized financing). Results: A conceptual model is proposed in which AI-robotics and blockchain jointly build digital operational and market-intelligence capabilities that improve financial performance (RevPAR/GOPPAR and net operating income), sustainability performance (carbon and resource intensity), and long-term asset value. Ten propositions articulate mechanisms and boundary conditions related to governance, ethics, privacy, cybersecurity, organizational readiness, regulation, and market context. Discussion: The article concludes with implications for hotel managers, owners, investors, and researchers, and outlines a future research agenda for hospitality, tourism, service management, and real-estate scholars.