Most blockchain pitches are bullshit. You know this. I know this. Here are a few use cases that actually make sense (needs to be more organized)
In Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina - anywhere the state practices irresponsible seigniorage - people need a way to hold value that won't be inflated away by tomorrow. Bitcoin offers that.
The question I still have: Who's actually absorbing the risk here? Cryptocurrency exchanges? And if you're fleeing your local currency, why not just hold dollars or euros directly? Maybe the answer is access—not everyone can open a foreign bank account. But the on-ramps and off-ramps are still controlled by someone.
Projects like the Totnes Pound or Sarafu-Credit use blockchain to reduce transaction costs for local currencies—money that circulates within a community and keeps value local.
The question I still have: Why decentralize this? A local currency is, by definition, local. Maybe the answer is transparency, or maybe it's that a blockchain is just cheaper than building your own payment infrastructure. But I'm not fully convinced yet.
This is where things get interesting. The idea: everyone executes a public algorithm on encrypted data. No single party sees the inputs. No single party controls the outcome.
The real use case? Deplatforming the platforms. You could replace Uber with a protocol—drivers and riders matched by an algorithm no one owns. No extraction. No surge pricing decided in a boardroom. Just the market, verified.
See also: When Workers Control the Gig Economy
IDEN3 and similar projects let you control your own data, prove things about yourself without handing over the underlying information. A web of trust instead of a credit bureau.
This could change credit ratings entirely. Instead of Experian owning your financial history, you could carry verifiable proofs that you selectively share.
To read: Vitalik's "On Collusion" about the coordination problems that arise when we decentralize trust.
The Althea Project builds meshnets, community-owned internet infrastructure for rural areas underserved by ISPs and telecoms. Blockchain handles the payments and routing.