- Assets move directly between entities — transfer and settlement are one-and-the-same — eliminating counterparty risk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_risk#Counterparty_risk)

- Assets move instantly, and settlement time is ~10 minutes (settlement can also be instant if the parties trust the other won’t “double spend”)

- The transfer mechanism is public infrastructure and is always improving — everyone has a shared incentive to make it better, similar to Internet protocols like email and http

- Assets and end-user data are privately controlled, and strong security for assets can be achieved by using multiple signing keys across several parties

- Policy rules about the movement of assets can be enforced programmatically — whether those are “terms and conditions” or regulatory requirements

- Assets are fungible and play nice together — e.g., you can use reward points to buy mobile minutes

- A single transaction can include multiple entities and assets, on both sides of the transaction — e.g., you could execute a merger of two companies in a single transaction, with the inputs to the transaction being all stockholders across all share classes for both companies, and the outputs being all the newco shares going to all the new stockholders (again, no escrow service needed)

- Every transaction is added to an immutable record which, while anonymous, can be used to construct a perfect audit trail of an asset’s movement when combined with the private data held by the entities using the system — this defends against fraud, and also gives issuers transparency into asset movements

- It’s easy to integrate new parties

- Like the Internet itself, it’s a global system

Worth a read: https://blog.chain.com/wall-street-meet-block-chain-b2747909...

Money. E.g. Bitcoin.

A centralized organization (.com or .gov) that can achieve consensus amongst participants can do just fine with Postgres and a REST API.

Adversarial participants are common, but typically that's solved with a third-party overseer that administers the system. Finding use cases that demand decentralization are harder.

Bitcoin was created to remove central banks/govts from the money creation process, but in most cases, if you don't trust the central authority, you just don't participate. With cash, you can't easily get around dealing with the govt.