[dragontamer]

Without the value aspect of it, what would incentivize people to perform proof of work?

Work costs money: like electricity isn't free at the scale of the BTC Network. It costs thousands of dollars of electricity to run those BTC mining rigs to verify the ledger.

----------

If you're saying the future of "blockchains" is just a cryptographically signed ledger, without any proof of work or BTCs being assigned, I think I can agree with you on that.

But at the moment, "blockchain" is the new cloud. No one really knows what a "blockchain" is anymore, aside from a new electronic ledger of some kind. BTC is clearly a blockchain, but a lot of the "blockchain-based technologies" are nothing like BTC at all.

A lot of these "blockchains" are just centralized banks electronically verifying transactions. Like a notarized bill of sale, except the 'notarized' portion is electronic. Proof of work and all that stuff just don't exist in a lot of the "blockchain" solutions coming out.

[smokeyj]

In theory users could pay a transaction fee denominated in a commodity. Once mined the miner can convert to another asset type. But say you're saving in terms of kegs of beer and can't pay a fraction of a keg - you could keep an energy fund so you can pay a highly granular transaction fee. Now, if the miner doesn't think the certificate is valid or reputable it won't be included.