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"Having trust" and "operating as if you have trust" are two different things. I can trust my management with spending authority, but I still have periodic audits.

Trust is not binary.

Blockchains, via crypto, remove uncertainty from medium-trust relationships that would otherwise incur overhead due to counterparty risk, allowing one to replace it with the risk that e.g. SHA256 or ECDSA signatures have been broken, which is usually orders of magnitude lower than squishy human being behavior risks. (Presuming participating organizations have a way of keeping their keys safe, which is expensive but solved.)

That overhead is significant, and entire multibillion dollar industries exist around validating those trust relationships (accounting, auditing, settlement, et c).

Imagine if you could replace them with software that doesn't have to take anyone's word for it.

That's a big efficiency win.




Could you give a concrete example of how blockchain technology can reduce costs associated with accounting, auditing and settlement? Just a single, concrete example is all I'm looking for.


Securities exchanges usually have settlement as a distinct step from trading. Blockchains as title make settlement faster, easier, and less expensive.




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