My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don’t see the point (yet)
When I first read Satoshi&#x27;s paper [1], I read it as a solution to the Two Generals&#x27; Problem [2]. The problem concerns itself with multiple parties coördinating and communicating over an untrusted channel.<p>The blockchain got distracted by finance. Modern settlement and clearing is efficient. It&#x27;s perhaps the most efficient part of the financial system; it is certainly the easiest to upgrade. The difficult stuff, the messy institutional knowledge, customs and tendencies, are unaffected by protocol choice. That&#x27;s why the same behaviors which plagued the unregulated banking system plague cryptocurrency markets today. People are still people.<p>There are many systems which require a trusted group of people to reach a consensus in public. (Libor is an example [1]. Notaries appear, <i>prima facie</i>, to be in a similar category.) Immutability is of dubious benefit. But a simple, public consensus mechanism beats checking sundry private APIs and blog posts (how a lot of this is done today). Unfortunately, this class of use cases is negated by a &quot;currency-like&quot; token value.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitcoin.org&#x2F;bitcoin.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitcoin.org&#x2F;bitcoin.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Two_Generals'_Problem" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Two_Generals'_Problem</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;terms&#x2F;l&#x2F;libor.asp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;terms&#x2F;l&#x2F;libor.asp</a>