Crypto currencies solve a legitimately interesting problem, which makes it a fascinating technology. My professor called it the "nuclear science" of computer sc

Crypto currencies solve a legitimately interesting problem, which makes it a fascinating technology. My professor called it the "nuclear science" of computer science. What is striking to me is that most people do not even understand what cryptocurrencies are. I sampled some of my (not so technical) friends about how anonymous bitcoin/etherium are, none of them knew that it essentially publishes the bank records of everyone as a fundamental part of how it works... A blockchain essentially is just a database. And so many times I have heard people proposing a "novel technology" where they just replaced a regular database with a blockchain, e.g. "why not track logistics through a blockchain". The trouble is that in every case using the blockchain made things worse. In what application do you have to defend against mallicious attack and can not rely on a central authority? In how many cases do you even want to not have a central authority? Money is basically the only semi-plausible use cases where just replacing the blockchain with a normal database doesn't improve the system.