[runeks]

It shouldn't be necessary either. The proof-of-work is only necessary to avoid a central party wrt. which blockchain is the "right one". Financial institutions are working together with each other, they can easily just agree on which blockchain to follow. But without proof-of-work, the blockchain is just a database with atomic updates. I don't see why they would need a blockchain for that.

Ripping Bitcoin in two gives you two fairly uninteresting things: 1) hash-cash and 2) a database full of public keys/signatures. Only combining the two gives you something interesting: negotiable/fungible hash cash (hash cash that can be transferred from person to person via a distributed database).

[wpietri]

> But without proof-of-work, the blockchain is just a database with atomic updates. I don't see why they would need a blockchain for that.

I have been asking this question for a long time and not yet seen a satisfactory answer. At this point I'm sure that either I or a bunch of blockchain advocates are missing something important. Glad to know somebody else sees the problem too.

[bendbro]

I had this feeling when I was discussing it here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12044767

[dgreensp]

I think by "blockchain" they mean hashed blocks that include the hash of the previous block and can be synced; basically git.

[TillE]

That doesn't gain you much besides a definite order and a way to check integrity. Useful things to be sure, but nothing a traditional database can't do.