[southpawflo]

with today's privacy and security concerns, for any new project, would starting from a position of anonymous trust despite the increased resource requirements really be a downside? I ask as an outsider to the industry. I do understand that blockchain tech doesn't need to be slapped onto everything, but from my perspective it seems the benefits generally outweigh the detriments - at least so far

[betterunix2]

The resource requirements are a massive downside, but they are only necessary for the "permissionless" model. In almost all cases it is equally good to use a permissioned model where the parties are all identified in advance, which completely avoids the need for proof of work (because there are no sybil attacks when everyone has a known and fixed identity).