In a distributed consensus environment a substantial number of proofs of work (in Bitcoins case a hash) must be performed to gradually ensure that a block in the chain is consistent and thus come to a consensus that it is in fact valid.
In Postgres a transaction can be verified and guaranteed to be consistent among nodes using a two phase commit protocol. Essentially a transaction is attempted, verified, and then committed by the nodes of the network in a guaranteed, and very secure, manner.
The upside to the Postgres method is you do not need a substantial number of individual processors to perform proof of work to securely verify consistency.