Alternative (authority based) consensus mechanisms are available for private chains [1][2] so you don't need to mine. Both the Kovan and Rinkeby test nets use p

Alternative (authority based) consensus mechanisms are available for private chains [1][2] so you don't need to mine. Both the Kovan and Rinkeby test nets use proof of authority based consensus mechanisms. Private networks are useful for test environments and proof of concept development. Apart from that a private blockchain is basically a glorified git repo, so in general it's pretty good that big companies are discovering that cryptographically linked immutable data structures are useful, but you are correct that the impact will be quite limited. [1]: https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/225 https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/225 [2]: https://wiki.parity.io/Aura.html https://wiki.parity.io/Aura.html