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Re:Ask HN: What does a blockchain give you that a database d... by malux85 on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @08:45AM (#15643285)
Trust is an important aspect. Especially at scale. If you were designing a large scale energy trading platform for example, that is trading hundreds of million or billions of dollars a day, a centralised database controlled by a third party is prone to corruption - when you get to that level of wealth, it’s basically guaranteed.

Or what about recording tax documents, or political promises, storing them on an immutable chain that’s unhackable (to the point that once it’s on chain the only way to modify it is to hack every copy on every node)

These are very large scale problems, and there’s lots of uses where databases will do just fine, but I see the key benefits as decentralised trust

Re:Ask HN: What does a blockchain give you that a database d... by sova on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @03:49PM (#15647463)
Today I participated in voting (put your energy in the system!) in local elections and I must say, voting is something that would benefit immensely from blockchain ideas. Cryptographically secured ballots that are verifiable but also don't expose individual's voting preferences, it's very possible! Very intriguing.