Real world ownership is not a use case for blockchain
I don&#x27;t agree. The article misunderstands a potentially useful aspect of blockchains, physical assets and the legal system. The blockchain is a linked list of immutable data. But this doesn&#x27;t mean the legal system is prevented from taking action.<p>Lets say that the matter of ownership goes to court but events leading up to that mean the private key has been destroyed. The asset is still owned and is sitting in a gallery or lockup. The naive now think &quot;who holds the now-lost key owns the painting but now the key is lost no one owns it&quot;. Wrong.<p>The matter is brought to court and the potential list of owners can be determined from the blockchain itself. The court can then confirm using that record the ownership by going back into the blockchain, finding and determining who is the legitimate owner and then order the creation of a new blockchain asset item[1]. Failing to assert ownership in court might even work against you. Then the new blockchain asset is linked to the old. The old block chain item doesn&#x27;t even need to be updated or deleted. Even if you could. Why? It still provides valuable history.<p>Blockchains recording ownership of assets is a benefit to the court system. Except for keys to lost cryptocurrency wallets. That&#x27;s likely always going to be a dead end. But that is no different to burning cash[2] or losing gold because you buried it near a beach.<p>[1] a new blockchain tracking item. Not a new Mona Lisa.<p>[2] except that cryptos once destroyed or lost usually can&#x27;t be replaced.