Does anything really require a blockchain

There isn't a need for a blockchain for most all of these applications. Your thoughts are valid. The reason for their popularity is the promotion to naive people using buzzwords and bandwagon.

You are correct in that, using something like a ordinary database, is more efficient and better than a blockchain.

Bitcoin works because it has no peer to the real world. But things, like (for example) distributed contracts require enforcement from the government and local laws to exist. It's not "autonomous" as it purports to be.

Well done. You cracked the code. Now shut your godamn mouth before the normans catch on and stop giving us their money.

Yes faggot. Shut up and buy

Exactly why I hold so much XRB

HST is a cool concept

>blockchain voting
>10x cheaper than institutional voting
>any person can check the entire voting poll
>fucks voter fraud right off

not trying to shill, just thinks its a genuinely useful application for blockchain.

...Also buy HST

The problem that blockchain solves is this: I can transfer you something digitally, whether it be a song, a dollar, a piece of art, a crypto kitty, a schematic for a dildo, a vote in an election, and I can be sure that only you holds that one copy of that thing, there's no way for you to replicate it and resell it twice. It cuts out having to have a trusted authority in the middle of everything. For example for me to send you a dollar I don't need to trust paypal to give you that dollar, for voting there's no chance of corruption in the vote count. The shit can't change. The ledger is immutable. In a Utopian world it is the end of corruption. In reality it just means cool stuff like a self driving car can own itself, and pay for itself to be repaired.

>turned out russian hackers wrote the whole thing

>A dozen companies that reaped rewards by putting “bitcoin” or “blockchain” in their name
>Amid the cryptocurrency mania, several companies have launched initiatives to take advantage of the burgeoning assets, from retailer Overstock.com to photo group Kodak. Some much smaller firms have rebranded themselves completely, adding “bitcoin” or “blockchain” directly to their name. In some cases, the companies’ share prices soared in the US, Germany, and Hong Kong after this crypto-tweak.
For example, Bitcoin Services, formerly known as Tulip BioMed, saw its stock increase by as much as 42,500% last year.
Companies have been changing their names to chase the latest craze for years. In the 1990s, adding “.com” to company names was a popular gambit (pdf). More recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission warned investors about marijuana-themed investments.
As for Bitcoin Services, the company has in fact gone through several names over the years: Before it was Tulip Biomed, it was Cell Bio-Systems, Direct Music Group, BMX Holdings, and JLL Miami Enterprises. It stands out from the other recently rebranded companies because it changed its name to Bitcoin Services all the way back in 2016, according to OTC Markets, yet its shares didn’t catch fire until last year.

You'd think an iced tea manufacturer adding "blockchain" to its name would mark the absolute apex of companies rebranding to ride surging interest in cryptocurrencies.

That's not the case, says one research firm, which sees the trend only just getting started.

There will be more than 100 instances of companies changing their titles in 2018, up from 31 in 2017, according to an analysis conducted by Autonomous Research. The firm's forecast is based on the similarly overwhelming number of corporate name changes seen during the dot-com bubble, when a large number of companies were trying to ride the Internet wave to quick stock gains.

In turn, Autonomous' findings are based on a 2002 academic study that looked at so-called dot-com "name gaming" and found that 126 companies altered their titles in 1999, a massive increase over just 13 in 1998. The chart below reflects that explosion of name changes in year T+1, or 1999.

well said
if a coin doesn't deliver those then pass
you don't the government to enforce distributed contracts if you make necklaces that blow the contract signer's head off if he breaks it

OP, there's good news and bad news.
Bad news: you're a normalfag. You can't get crypto as it is, you don't have the required capacity for abstraction. Forget trying to understand it.
Good news: you're a normalfag. What you feel in your gut is likely what other normies feel. So follow your gut, doublecheck around you to see if your fellow normies agree, and dive in. Good fiat returns to be made on short term trades this way.

Wow, OP and everyone in this thread is a brainlet normie who has no idea what any of this is even about. OP, you actually CAN'T make cryptokitties without the blockchain. If they're just a replicateable piece of code then they have no value, there's no scarcity there. How would you verify that a given kitty is legitimate and not a forgery? Who's going to trust YOU, the creator, not to duplicate them?

For me the value of block chain comes from the fact that it's decentralized. A company can't just wipe ethereum by unplugging the server. They can't artificially manipulate who owns what, etc. The services we use everyday being transferred over to block chain technology means that power goes back to the PEOPLE.