I've been asking this exact question of blockchain enthusiasts and evangelists for over a year now, and have never received a clear response. I understand the

I've been asking this exact question of blockchain enthusiasts and evangelists for over a year now, and have never received a clear response. I understand the difference between a distributed ledger and a database, but in all use cases I've heard mentioned as ripe for blockchain derived innovation, not once has a blockchain really been necessary or even an improvement over a traditional database based solution. To give you an idea of how buzzwordy this all is, my friend works in venture capital and was trying to explain to me how blockchain was going to change the world after he got back from a blockchain conference, saying that it would "revolutionize VR/AR, AI, etc...", technologies that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. I just laughed.