[kryptonomist]

"Can we use a distributed database instead? If the answer is ‘Yes’, why go for blockchain at all? Indeed, blockchain is slower and more resource-intensive."

The key factor when assessing a blockchain project is indeed to see what is the advantage of a blockchain vs a usual database.

Most of the time, there is none. Worse, cost of a blockchain is more expensive as pointed by the article.

And you still need an authoritative registry somewhere if there any physical item involved.

In addition to that, blockchain projects faces another business issue: to be really decentralized, you have to lose control of what you put on the blockchain, which is hard to conceive for a private company.