Been mulling this over recently: 

Are blockchains only a valuable/viable technical solution when credible neutrality matters?

Head of @zksync era, venture partner @latticefund, co-founder chainstory.xyz & writer karthikoncrypto.xyz, FID 681

Co-founder at @banklessconsult, the leading strategy-to-execution global consultancy in crypto. I write on paragraph.xyz/@mc10

Yeah for sure.  Perhaps i'm picking nits, but the way I thought about it is if u want disintermediated ownership, you need credible neutral infra to pull it off. (similar to how real estate law in the US is credibly neutral)

Mmmm not sure.

Blockchains are valuable for all those use cases where the advantages of disintermediated ownership outweigh the disadvantages of the tech inefficiencies.

Cofounder, Managing Partner @ Multicoin Capital

Good pt — altho one could argue that any decentralized network that have a token or pay/issue incentives to node operators require credibly neutral infra to ensure token supply and transfers arent manipulated, right?

Perhaps a more interesting question is: “are use cases where credible neutrality is the most important thing the most compelling to be solved by blockchain” (eg is credible neutrality the most imp/interesting property of blockchains)?

No. Use cases like helium don’t require credible neutrality of L1

I would argue that units of value gain utility by existing on a standard protocol with other units of value. It removes friction and humans become more efficient as they look to realize their goals.

Imagine if all units of value could be swapped via Uniswap, for example.

I think there are a lot of use cases for block chain, and credible neutrality is usually along for the ride, no matter the use-case said blockchain is being implemented to solve.