[woooooo]

Not a consensus protocol researcher.

It seems like blockchain brings a bunch of extra stuff, complexity and cost? Raft seems comparatively simple to me.

What does blockchain bring that's easier to maintain and harder to fuck up than "elect a leader and replicate a log"?

[Vervious]

A blockchain (without all the bells and whistles) is definitionally equivalent to a state-machine or log replication system (but handling byzantine faults). (Each log entry is just a block).