I was recently asked to give a short presentation on "what is blockchain" at a session with government agencies who wanted to formulate a position on whether th

I was recently asked to give a short presentation on "what is blockchain" at a session with government agencies who wanted to formulate a position on whether they should do anything with blockchains. And my conclusion was almost exactly the same as this post: blockchain is part of a set of specific technologies you need to solve the very specific problem that Bitcoin solves. Another thing without which Bitcoin wouldn't work is the PoW stuff. If your requirements are different, then many of those other technologies are still relevant but blockchain is not. And if you are not a digital coin, your requirements _are_ different.