# Background

The complex architecture of today's financial system bears significant vulnerabilities, a fact starkly highlighted by the 2008 financial crisis. This event, which wiped out around $8 trillion in home equity in the U.S., underscores the risks of a centralized and interlinked financial framework. The crisis, rooted in opaque practices and excessive reliance on central institutions, underscored the necessity for a financial system that is more resilient and self-governing.

Furthermore, recent developments like local conflicts and global trade tensions have made personal wealth increasingly susceptible to a range of risks. These risks underscore the importance of safeguarding against various external factors, including discrimination, racial biases, and geopolitical challenges. Our project addresses these systemic weaknesses, highlighted by both the 2008 crisis and more recent failures like the FTX bankruptcy.

In this context, the emergence of Bitcoin1 and Ethereum2 marks a significant stride in building a digital economy that can mitigate the risks associated with these global and local conflicts. The advent of smart contracts, NFTs, and Layer 2 solutions represents an explosion in digital-native assets. However, there are still obstacles to overcome, such as the inefficiencies of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and the opacity of centralized exchanges (CEXs), which hinder broader adoption.

The original design of Bitcoin was mainly as a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, lacking solutions for most digital assets and only offering transaction-related functions. Ethereum, with its smart contracts, made blockchain technology more versatile, supporting any custom new digital assets such as trading tokens (ERC-20), NFT tokens (ERC-721), Ordinal (BRC-20), and self-verifiable function tokens (verifiable credentials). Moreover, the universal computational logic of smart contracts has made it possible to facilitate trustless asset custody, conditional transaction logic, and transparent, visible settlement rules.

<br>


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.jayx.com/jayx-docs-n8rfmgwto77q5ila/visions/background.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.