Yup, that’s pretty much it.

And you’re exactly correct: it is a niche solution to a very specific problem.

And that makes the OP meme wrong and ignorant; an overly broad generalization that fails to educate, instead perpetuating a “crypto bad” mentality projected onto a useful piece of tech.

It’s like saying “when do you need nuclear fission? Never” ignoring the fact that nuclear power is the perfect solution for some very specific use cases (like powering rovers on Mars) and a good solution to a few others (large scale terrestrial power generation)

Right, but if it’s being used internally within an organization then the business itself is the authority. I think I mentioned this in another reply somewhere but in many of these use cases it’s about preventing tampering or falsification of records.

Let’s take the pharmaceuticals use case as an example. In that scenario the important things to track are:

• When did a product come off the production line
• Who or what system handled the packing and shipment
• When was it shipped
• When was it received
• Who received it
• When does it expire
• When was a specific item provided to a patient
• Has a participant had their permissions revoked

If the pharmaceutical company is the one managing that system, and they provide individual health care facilities (and any intermediate handles) with “private keys”, that’s the entire extent of the central authority that’s required. Literally every other element can be encoded on the blockchain.

Compare that to a traditional system where you have to maintain databases, provide always-on connectivity to those databases for every participant, manage access control permissions for every user, etc etc etc

With blockchain, every participant can get the entirety of what they need with just their “private key” and a copy of the blockchain from one other peer. That’s it. They can submit their blocks (for a leaf node, “I received this package”; “I gave the item to this patient”; etc) to that one peer and as long as there is a path through that peer to the distributed network, the rest of the network can authenticate the validity of those blocks through network consensus. Tampering is immediately evident. And every block they submit is traceable to whoever that private key was issued to. And once they submit a block to the chain it can never be undone or modified, even if they have all the “permissions” in the world. They’d have to take over a massive percent of the distributed network to alter consensus.

You’ve misunderstood. They’re not using this for inter-bank transfers. They’re using it for inter-branch/intra-bank communication. And most major banks - certainly the ones investing in blockchain - have hundreds to thousands of branches.

Not to mention signing+encryption and blockchain are not mutually exclusive. You can have signed and encrypted blocks on a chain

I don’t mean to be rude but it sounds like you aren’t very familiar with digital identity management paradigms in the first place?

Proving who you are is always a relative operation. It’s always about the relationship between two things. “I am the person who generated this other message” or “I am the person whose face looks like this”.

Key/certificate issuance follows a variety of different models depending on the use case. Sometimes “this object was generated/signed by the person who controls this key” is enough, as is the case with things like secure emails (think gpg/pgp). Other times you need an authority to give relative meaning to a key/certificate (think SSL).

It’s certainly not necessary, it just provides specific advantages in terms of tamper resistance, validation, etc. If you’re not working in a system where the integrity and authenticity is paramount and doing that validation over the wire constantly is prohibitive then there’s no significant benefit. But there are lots of scenarios where those are EXACTLY what you want to prioritize. Several of the examples I added to my initial reply offer clear use cases that benefit.

As for my definition, I’ll defer to the literal definition:

A blockchain is a decentralized, immutable digital ledger that records transactions chronologically in “blocks” linked together using cryptography. Each new block contains a hash of the previous one, forming a secure chain that is distributed across a peer-to-peer network of computers, making it tamper-evident and resistant to changes without network consensus. This distributed and transparent system eliminates the need for a central authority, allowing participants to verify and trust the recorded data.

Note that proof of work is NOT part of the definition. Proof of work is very specifically related to cryptocurrency, and exists only as a mechanism to prevent the arbitrary creation of additional currency (blocks). There is nothing about blockchain that requires proof of work. Often you use proof of stake instead of proof of work, but even that isn’t strictly necessary

P.s. this is exactly what I mean when I talk about how grifters have ruined a perfectly good technology by poisoning the public awareness of it. The fact that you considered proof of work to be a core element of blockchain is because of cryptocurrency, and the notoriety it has received because of the grift. Other examples of this phenomenon include Tesla and their impact on the perception of autonomous vehicles (which Teslas are not, but try very hard to make you think they are), and LLMs and “AI” and their impact on the perception of real AI projects and other forms of machine learning.

Sure but when the Blockchain is restricted to operation within a specific ecosystem that is kinda moot, no? Like, if I’m managing a supply chain but have concerns about the participants in that supply chain being compromised, then it’s okay for me as a central authority to define the standard and then use the decentralized nature of Blockchain to validate and distribute the use cases for that standard.

Take a company like Target as an example. They want to make sure that their supply chain ledger is immutable and trustworthy. They don’t want anyone within their organization, from the CEO down to the shipping dock workers, to be able to falsify or tamper with line items in the ledger. As a central authority they can define a standard using Blockchain that solves that problem AND doesn’t depend on a central authority to do it beyond the initial standard definition. That reduces attack surface significantly.

Blockchain itself is just, at its core, a method of cryptographically proving the authenticity of a ledger history. That’s it. What you DO with that technology is fairly boundless. You can embed anything in a block on the chain. We have lots of existing ways to handle proof of identity that can be inserted into a block (imagine if blocks contained the public key of block’s creator and then the entire block (including the public key) is signed with the private key)

Using Blockchain in these situations provides clear advantages. The whole point is removing the need for trusted parties in yes scenarios because it introduced significant risk. Centralization has implicit dangers.

Sure do! Quoting my other reply:

Immutable ledger for inter-branch bank transaction synchronization.

This is already in use at multiple financial institutions with significant value. It has increased the speed at which transactions can be verified and distributed across large networks of bank branches so that, for example, when you deposit your money at one bank branch it becomes available elsewhere on the network immediately without waiting for the end-of-day ledger reconciling. Previously, banks had to send just the transaction details and trust that it would be valid during reconciling (the “pending” status).

Want some more?

EDIT: Took the liberty of adding a bunch of examples to my original reply 👍

Immutable ledger for inter-branch bank transaction synchronization.

This is already in use at multiple financial institutions with significant value. It has increased the speed at which transactions can be verified and distributed across large networks of bank branches so that, for example, when you deposit your money at one bank branch it becomes available elsewhere on the network immediately without waiting for the end-of-day ledger reconciling. Previously, banks had to send just the transaction details and trust that it would be valid during reconciling (the “pending” status).

Want some more?

EDIT: Went ahead and added several examples to my original reply. 👍

This is just plain wrong. Blockchain is not a synonym for cryptocurrency or proof-of-work.

Grifters ruin everything and this reply is a perfect example

I hate this so much because it’s absolutely false. Nobody needs cryptocurrency. But Blockchain has very real value that has nothing to do with currency, grift, or “proof of work”. Blockchain is NOT synonymous with crypto and the fact that everyone believes it is shows exactly how much damage the grifters have done :(

EDIT: Haters gonna hate. Hope everyone who down-votes reads the replies too.

EDIT 2: Here you go, everybody. I did the research for you…

Supply chain management

• Food safety: Companies like Walmart and IBM Food Trust use blockchain to track food products from their source to the store shelf. This allows for a swift, precise response to contamination by tracing affected items, potentially saving lives and reducing waste.
• Logistics and shipping: Shipping giant Maersk has partnered with IBM to create TradeLens, a blockchain platform that digitizes and automates shipping documents and processes. This increases transparency and efficiency across the global supply chain.

Healthcare and medical records

• Secure data sharing: Blockchain can create a secure, interoperable system for storing and sharing patient medical records. Patients can use private keys to control who accesses their sensitive data, ensuring privacy while allowing authorized providers to get the information they need.
• Pharmaceutical tracking: The MediLedger Project uses blockchain to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain, verifying the integrity of drugs and reducing the risk of counterfeit medications.
• Clinical trial management: Platforms like TrialSite use blockchain to record clinical trial data securely and transparently. This helps maintain the integrity of results, building greater trust among researchers, regulators, and participants.

Government and public services

• Land and property records: The government of Georgia has used blockchain to secure land and property records, creating an immutable and transparent public record. This reduces fraud and ensures the integrity of land titles.
• Voting systems: The mobile voting platform Voatz uses a blockchain-based system to enable secure, transparent mobile voting for eligible service members and travelers abroad. This provides a resilient solution against fraud and data corruption.

Finance (non-crypto) and banking

• Efficient transaction processing: Financial institutions like the Singapore Exchange Limited are using blockchain to streamline interbank payments. This reduces manual reconciliation and enables more efficient processing of thousands of transactions.
• Supply chain finance: TradeIX uses blockchain to provide a transparent platform for supply chain finance, automating processes and streamlining transactions.

Education

• Credential verification: Learning Machine uses blockchain for the secure issuance of digital diplomas and credentials. This provides a more trustworthy and efficient method for verifying academic achievements.

Intellectual property and media

• Transparent ticketing: Companies like Guts use blockchain to create a transparent ticketing ecosystem that eliminates ticket fraud and the secondary ticket market.

Energy and utilities

• Peer-to-peer energy trading: Homeowners with solar panels can use blockchain-based platforms to automatically sell their excess energy to neighbors. Smart meters record the transactions on a blockchain, automating the entire process.