this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Hello,

I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.

is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?

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[โ€“] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In theory, yes. I can't think of a practical example, but it's basically a decentralized, public, write-only database. I'm sure there are niche applications for use as a public ledger or similar.

[โ€“] logicbomb@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Honestly, cryptocurrency is an example. Some cryptocurrencies don't have mining and so aren't all that bad, and there is a use case for it, even if most of what we see today is hype.

Another example might be something like a way of proving something happened before a certain time. Like how people can send themselves sealed letters in the mail, and claim that the postmark proves that it was sealed before that date. If you put cryptographic signatures only into a public blockchain, that could be used as evidence that the document existed at that time.