Creo que se trata de dezentralization y transparencia.Un blockchain es una cadena de bloques. Para la mayoría de las aplicaciones de bases de datos, tiene sentido agregar transacciones a la base de datos de forma inmediata en lugar de esperar para agruparlas en bloques. ¿Por qué entonces es el sacrificio de las transacciones de bloqueo (desde la perspectiva de un usuario de base de datos) una buena decisión de diseño para el sistema en general?

Pero actualmente, el blockchain está sobrevalorado y sobrevalorado. Muchos casos de uso aún se hacen mejor con bases de datos privadas cerradas,Finalmente, las cadenas de bloques públicas están abiertas y sin permiso. Tienen la ventaja de permitir que cualquiera innove.

Blockchain allows to create decentralized currencies, we don't need central banks anymore, it is the biggest revolution of the last century. Blockchain is a new tool, a tool does not create value by itself,  the new products created with this new tools have value. @daan007 gave you examples of new products created with the blockchain which each have different value.

I think the value of a blockchain is created through it's immutable character. Data saved in a blockchain can not be changed without changing the hash of the block. In combination with the decentralisation a blockchain improves the data integrity compared to regular databases. The data integrity is part of the blockchain itself and there is no need to control through an extern source. So the real value of a blockchain is the reduced cost and work to secure the integrity of information. Companies can save money by using a blockchain. And through checking the hash a computer sytem can check the integrity by itself. This will be a huge step for automatisation of a lot of processes. This will be really valuable when core tasks like company taxes will be done completly online and need a secure and immutable way to store information. At the moment it's still required to keep paper records for tax declaration because computer systems are not secure enough against manipulation.

In my opinion I don't think blockchains are valuable without decentralization. From what I understand, blockchains are really slow and expensive data bases that should never be used if cost and speed are your main priorities. Without decentralization, blockchains are a waste. Now, I understand that true decentralization is very hard to achieve and there's arguments that no coins are actually decentralized, but blockchains are a marketing term buzz word to sell highly centralized company stock. So, what makes blockchains special is decentralization. Other than that, it's all hype with no substance. That's my understanding. :-)

Tomado textualmente del discurso.
Segun, Patrick T. Harker
Presidente, Reserva Federal de Filadelfia. (realizó un discurso para la Universidad de Pensilvania )

Blockchain tiene un tremendo potencial y los bancos pueden utilizarlo para administrar aún más el riesgo. Desde mi perspectiva, sin embargo, ***su valor real está en la autenticación***, no en la distribución de una moneda virtual. Y las implicaciones de tener un libro distribuido que ofrece almacenamiento de datos prácticamente a prueba de fallos son enormes al lado de la gestión de riesgos para cualquier negocio.
los hace especiales y poderoso ***el almacenamiento a prueba de errores***
un fuerte y cariñoso abrazo amigo @knircky

Blockchains are valuable for a number of reasons, what really makes them special is the decentralized aspect of them. A decentralized and widely distributed blockchain is a very powerful tool for democracy, freedom of expression and information.

Blockchains are valuable because we assign them value just like anything else. They maintain their value because they are cryptographically secure and immutable. You cannot simple print more Bitcoin and must acquire it from someone else or mine it (Proof of Work) some other blockchains require Proof of Stake such as Stellar Lumens and other require proof of care or some hybrid. The worst blockchains have been premined and are for sale to the highest bidder. These favor the wealthy and the creators. They may have assigned economic value but they have little value to society as a whole as the aren't really decentralized and are consolidated in the hands of the few.
Many blockchains are clones, these should be avoided too because they will likely never be as valuable as the original. For example Litecoin will never be worth more than Bitcoin because it is a copy and isn't revolutionary. Ethereum is revolutionary because it is a smart contract, not just a representation of value like Bitcoin. EOS is similar to Ethereum in that it is also a smart contract but will probably never be worth as much because of first mover advantage Ethereum has. The childchains give Ethereum value and the decentralized applications which are powered by Ethereum because they create demand for it, improve it and make it more functional. EOS may never catch up to this as it is a couple years late as not as widely spread. NEO might become more valuable because of political reasons. I can go on and on about various coins, if you want a valuable one, go with XLM, mainly because it's extremely fast, as cheap as possible, backed by industry titans and it's being widely distributed for free. Ultimately adoption and acceptance will make a blockchain valuable.

As for the power of blockchains; having the ability to share and store information which cannot be edited by a third party is extremely valuable. We can use this to digitalize democracy, make accounting and taxes more transparent, make society require less trust and faith in big government, legal systems, banks, and other holders of information. This is revolutionary and blockchain could change society as much as written language. It's a form of communication that cannot be destroyed or altered.

I think blockchain can be valuable because of the decentralized character. Which means that there is not 1 person or entity that controls the blockchain. And everything that goes into the blockchain will remain there and can't be changed. So you can always find the truth and nothing but the truth!

You can have a medium of value that is ruled by the users, not governments/banks and the rules of the game cannot be changed on you without consensus of the community as a majority (i.e. Fork).  Even in crypto currency's that have inflation you can delegate who is the beneficiary of that inflation for the productive value they are adding to the society (Steem/EOS systems).  So for the first time we can buy in to currencies that function by design that we agree with.

 You can trade in your Fiat currency that is centrally controlled in the governments can just print the money in the beneficiaries of the inflation are the governments and the big banks .

  The delta between the utility of those two types of currencies is value which has been reflected in price discovery in the past 10 years.

Blockchain technology is valuable in every aspect and is useful for everyone. The major use case advantages are mentioned below.
1. For Supply chain management - Ensures traceability and cost-effectiveness.
2. For Quality Assurance - Can detect irregularities in supply chain thus helps execute prompt corrective actions.
3. For Accounting - Guaranteed accuracy of records and highly traceable audit trail.
4. For Smart Contracts - Eliminates need of mediators saving time and money.
5. For Voting - Removes electoral fraud.
6. For Stock Exchanges - Can cut down intermediaries, (Clearing Houses) speed up process, saves considerable time and Money.
7. For Energy Supply - Can accurately track usage and can help track clean energy.
8. For Peer to Peer Global transactions - Enables fast, secure and cost-effective fund transfers across the world.
9. Transparent Economies - All these processes will result in minimizing corruption, Forced & Improved utilization of allocated funds across every sector/ organization including Governments, resulting Increased per capita income and overall global growth.

Blockchains and the blockchain technology are valuable because it is a secure ledger for transactions across the chain. It could revolutionize the banking industry if they were to begin adopting it. 

Right now banks use a centralized system that have to deal with hacking attempts frequently.

> As people transact in a Blockchain ecosystem, a public record of all transactions is automatically created. Computers verify each transaction with sophisticated algorithms to confirm the transfer of value and create a historical ledger of all activity. The computers that form the network that are processing the transactions are located throughout the world and importantly are not owned or controlled by any single entity. The process is real-time, and much more secure than relying on a central authority to verify a transaction.

For the blockchain to be hacked and the ledger disrupted, every computer around the world that is verifying transactions will have to be hacked at the exacted same time with the exact same information. 

The blockchain is a lot more of secure way to process transactions and to keep records.

Secure and fast transaction . With Blockchain technology they can keep data more securely.

A blockchain is a chain of blocks. For most database applications, it makes sense to add transactions to the database immediately rather than wait to group them into blocks. Why then is the sacrifice of blocking transactions (from the perspective of a database user), a good design decision for the overall system?

Blocks are necessitated by mining, whereby an entity is awarded the ability to add a block and determine which transactions it contains (as long as all transactions are valid according to the protocol). The benefit of mining is that it enables distributed consensus and immutability. Proof of work and proof of stake are two different methods for determining who will mine blocks, but both strive to create decentralization and immutability.

Thus for what applications do decentralization and immutability matter? They are important for applications where there may be censorship or failure of centralized entities. In addition, decentralization can help with system reliability and robustness. Hence, money is a great application for blockchains. Arguably, social media is also a good applications as we've lately seen more censorship of social media.

Finally, public blockchains are open & permissionless. They have the advantage of allowing anyone to innovate. Whereas you need Facebook's permission to build an application on top of it, anyone can build a Steem application (like Steem Bounty and [many others](http://steemtools.com/)). Thus the pace of development is much more rapid for systems built on a blockchain, despite the underlying inefficiency of the data structure.

I guess it will force people to lie less.

In my opinion blockchains are valuable because they offer an alternative. Bitcoin itself was born after/during global financial crisis of 2008 as an alternative to modern financial systems. Once there is an alternative then it is up to the people to choose if they want to give any value to the alternative, in this case bitcoin and blockchains in general. 

Every human interaction, every choice in essence creates or at the very least assigns value. Most common choice is how to spend time: create something, go to work, watch tv, hang out with friends, spend time with family, engage in sports, travel, spend time on social media, learn new things, various hobbies, etc. One way or the other we try to give different value to different things at various times. I think it is all about options available and choices made.

For example, here on Steem value is not just created by posting blogs and exchanging upvotes, I think real values comes with people choosing to spend their valuable times in various communities, networking, building new things. Everything done on Steem can be done elsewhere, but Steem is providing alternative. Is it a better alternative that can go mainstream? Depends who you ask. Nobody knows. It will be determined by choices people make.

Blockchains have a great potential to empower ordinary people, yet these potentials aren't without risks. Best technologies are always the ones that are easy to utilize. I think, making them simple to understand and easy to use is where blockchains might be failing at the moment.

Well, value, to answer the first question can be very subjective. Decentralization, the core principle and action of blockchains, if the elements of the blockchain are built and deployed correctly, can provide higher security, greater redundancy, more transparency, greater accountability and make it harder to change data without it being discovered. If those items are actually met, are they valuable? I would say yes.

Having blocks being witnessed and signed by servers potentially all over the world make it more difficult to hack, to corrupt, to lose, and to change data, while making it impossible to sensor. Once transactions are deemed valid, they are on the blockchain for as long as the blockchain exists.

Now, I suppose the technology in of itself, it could be said, is only as valuable as what goes on it. If nothing goes on it, or if it's filled up with things no one wants or cares about, does the blockchain still have value? Maybe, but there might need to be a change in what's stored there in the future in order for anyone to recognize it.

Yes blockchains have value - open distributed ledgers is the 1st implementation solving the double-spend problem. This in itself is a major breakthrough and has already led to many changes in how we do things.

But currently blockchain is over-hyped and over-valued. Many use cases are still better done by closed private databases. A lot of the answers above sound good in theory but will not/would not last in practice due to inefficiencies and scaling problems, and simply there is no need for some blockchains to be open and distributed  - i.e. Burger King has one, why? Who cares who owns Burger King tokens and how those coins are utilised.

Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should, or by doing it, value is created. Just hype.

Cheers

Even though I'm still ignorant in such matters, I can really said categorically that Blockchain has changed my life, specially the Steemit Blockchain. Living in a country such as Venezuela is a plus because our earnings are far bigger than having a regular job. Blockchain has certainly helped Third world countries and nations were inflation has eaten all the value of our income. I'm still learning and I personally believe that blockchain is the future and will be a life savior for those who are in need. Cheers!

The Blockchain lets you use the Internet to securely transact with anyone without any middleman. Like the Internet, no one is in charge and it is nearly impossible to shut down. It will disrupt all the intermediaries we currently use to exchange value and serve as trusted parties, including banks, financial markets, and  governments.

>Blockchain technology refers to various schemes that use cryptography and consensus algorithms to allow multiple parties to share a database where no central party is in control. This allows multiple untrusted parties to transact and keep records in transparent and fully auditable manner.

>>Sometimes blockchain technology is used to describe non-financial uses of the Bitcoin blockchain such as securing medical records or issuing a digital asset that represents a vehicle.

>>>Overall, blockchain technology is over-hyped, underestimated, and generally misunderstood. The phrase has become so misused that it's meaning is nebulous.

I think blockchains are valuable because of lack of censorship, 
manipulation of government policy, and the only rules are the rules which community set. The other value is that it's impossible to fraud money, everything is transparent so everyone can check whether some transacion had place or not.

Decentralized consensus i.e. trust is highly valuable. Blockchain is the mechanism of decentralized consensus. If it technically able + have a net effect it's truly valuable. Otherways it's potentially valuable and so can be speculated.

En mi opinión, las cadenas de bloques son valiosas porque ofrecen una alternativa. Bitcoin en sí nació después durante la crisis financiera mundial de 2008 como una alternativa a los sistemas financieros modernos. Una vez que hay una alternativa, depende de las personas elegir si desean dar algún valor a la alternativa, en este caso bitcoin y blockchains en general.

Creo que blockchain puede ser valioso debido al carácter descentralizado. Lo que significa que no hay 1 persona o entidad que controle la cadena de bloques. Y todo lo que entra en el blockchain permanecerá allí y no se puede cambiar. ¡Así que siempre puedes encontrar la verdad y nada más que la verdad, Saludos.

What I like most about blockchain is the decentralization, the way of development depends on each one of us, it is different from the systems we always manage traditionally, particularly I like the transparency of all actions, that generates confidence and when you feel confident, the comfort makes you feel at home, the blockchain changed my life, it has made me change my vision and get more friends, it's great, I'm sorry my English use translator

Same Currency everywhere on Earth. 
Decentralized so the Blockchain is influcened by all, who use the currency.
More Security than on Banks.
Central Bank got no direct influence to increase/decrease the value of the currency on the Blockchain.
Informations are not saved on 1 system it is on every system which uses it.
Thinks cant be deleted so easily.

The blockchain are important and in the present represents the economy of many countries as for example in my country Venezuela, as you know we have a government that regulates and controls everything, the minimum salary of each Venezuelan is 0.98 USD and as an example a liter of milk is 0.55, that is, half of the salary. Many of us have focused our work on the blockchain since it is decentralized and is not controlled by any government, the blockchain has been a blessing for us. I have a year with the cryptocurrency and I can say that It has gone to me not well but better than many so LIVE THE BLOCKCHAIN. I send you a big hug from Venezuela.

In the Bitcoin network there is no bank or anyone with the authority to adjust the extracts. There is no central authority. The actual states of the accounts are determined by the consensus of the computational work of the miners. The power of computational processing is creating the blockchain, from there provi.

When a transaction is made and that transaction is retransmitted to the entire network, the existence and veracity of that transaction is not yet confirmed. With the decentralized structure of Bitcoin, the existence of this transaction is confirmed when it is included in the blockchain and new blocks are created on top of the block in which the transaction we have made is confirmed.

At any moment there could be two or more blocks at the same level competing to process the same transaction and become the next block in the blockchain. Some of the blocks will end up being "orphans" and only one will be the "real" one when they grow with more blocks.

Cada interacción humana, cada elección en esencia crea o al menos asigna valor. La opción más común es cómo pasar el tiempo: crear algo, ir a trabajar, mirar televisión, salir con amigos, pasar tiempo con la familia, participar en deportes, viajar, pasar el tiempo en las redes sociales, aprender cosas nuevas, pasatiempos variados, etc. De una forma u otra tratamos de darle un valor diferente a diferentes cosas en diferentes momentos. Creo que se trata de opciones disponibles y elecciones hechas.Por ejemplo, aquí, en Steem, el valor no solo se crea publicando blogs e intercambiando votos al alza, creo que los valores reales vienen cuando la gente elige pasar sus valiosos tiempos en varias comunidades, creando redes, construyendo cosas nuevas. Todo lo que se hace en Steem se puede hacer en otros lugares, pero Steem ofrece una alternativa. ¿Es una mejor alternativa que puede ser dominante? Depende de a quién le preguntes Nadie lo sabe. Estará determinado por las elecciones que las personas hagan.

Blockchains tiene un gran potencial para empoderar a la gente común, sin embargo, estos potenciales no están exentos de riesgos. Las mejores tecnologías son siempre las que son fáciles de utilizar. Creo que, haciéndolos simples de entender y fáciles de usar, es donde las blockchains podrían estar fallando en este momento. Saludos amigo @knircky

A blockchain is a way to ensure that accounting rules are followed without have any central authority enforce them. It does this by requiring that anyone trying to forge a transaction that breaks the rules has to compete in a very hard computational puzzle solving competition with all the participants trying to obey the rules. Unless the cheat can control more than half the available computer power on the network, they will almost certainly lose.

The key idea behind this is a hash function. A hash function is a function that summarizes a much longer piece of information, producing a number that is quite short, but extremely difficult to compute if you don't have the original information. Every ten minutes, the "mining" nodes of the blockchain network collect together a bunch of transactions that obey the rules, and try to create a new block. The block consists of the hash of the previous block (hence block chain), the new transactions, a special number, and its own hash.

The special number is the clever part. It has to be chosen such that the hash of the block has some special property. In the case of Bitcoin, the hash has to have a certain number of leading zeros. This is very hard to do - there is no way to solve the problem except to try numbers at random and see which ones work. The difficulty of choosing the special number is tuned such that it will take the entire power of all the machines cooperating to enforce the rules approximately ten minutes to do.

- For the same reasons anything else has value.... Because us the consumers give it value. There is an old saying, " something is worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. ". And that applies to the blockchain as well. The demand for it creates its value.

- Plus people tend to dislike governments / the big bad banks and that helps with it success as well.

I would like to give this a try as well, though many others have tried and seems like the right answer is still not there.

I feel Blockchains are valuable majorly because of the data and how you use the blockchain for that data. It is the way the data is stored and the amount of data that is being stored.

The way the data is stored make it valuable because everyone's data is on publically (there could be private as well though) accessible platforms, yet the integrity of the data is maintained. After several calculations and proofing logics, the data is put into the blockchain. There is a lot of effort being done in ensuring right data goes in right manner.

The humongous amounts of data it can store and the excessively large number of transactions that can happen in parallel make it valuable.

Finally it is important how we use blockchain for data. You can use it to build a chain of items but when you use it to implement a chain that is smart (smart as in smart contracts) and logical, it adds value to all data that is there and what it can deliver out of that data.

Hello, I think one of the main things that makes it special is that it allows the community in general to participate, that is, provided that you have the necessary technological capabilities you will have possibilities to belong to this in blockchain world.

is the closest thing to the phrase "in the union is the strength"

because basically power is a distribution, I like that there is the possibility of knowing the guide of a transaction of some form of transparency and that gives security.
 
and as it depends on many involved, it is more difficult to attack it, of course, there are 51% attacks, but this is
question of luck.

in general terms, I like all this Blockchain, I think it is ideal to acquire the best of each place, the option of a global distribution, it is positive to be known throughout the world, although this is beginning.

Blockchains are simply technological tools and like every tool, its only value is in its application, clearly, since I'm posting this here and have crypto holdings they are a tool I'm prepared to use to my advantage for exactly as long as it remains advantageous.   

1. However just like with beauty value is in the eyes of the beholder, all these cryptos are no different from any fiat in that they only have value because people have agreed they do. Scarcity is not enough to make the value in and of itself if human feces became scarce tomorrow it would not stop it from being shit.

So in that argument, the blockchain doesn't create anything new as we could already exchange time and resources for "tokens" others are willing to exchange for good or services.

2. Does the blockchain create transparency? At transaction level yeah sure, but fall again to the beholder some might argue the question of what good is transparency without accountability which is what you have in the environment of anonymity while the other camp would never support a blockchain with real life id verification.

3. But blockchain is valuable because it's superfast the super fastest right? some are some aren't.

4. Blockchain technology will help us beat the evil megacorp banks that own the government!  No no, it won't there are all building their own, tax on crypto is becoming a real thing to quote.

5. But... but Steemit and busy and all the others: What if I told you there was no reason for Steemit to run on top of a decentralized blockchain that a profit-sharing tokenized content reward system could just as easily run on a centralized system that provides the benefits of governance and the ability to punish bad actors, you know like removing rewards from plagiarists removing active malicious users discovered as threats to your wallet.

I repeat a blockchain only has value in its application some of these applications could change a lot of how we do business, could change voter turnout by allowing your private key to vote from home, play a major role in the internet of things.

Alternatively, what value would you find in a massive world government security blockchain there your implant carries your private key and your location is recorded indelibly by every electronic device you pass... oops mobiles

They are so valuable and powerful because for to decrypt, open , edit  and recrypt a single block of the chain you need a impressive power of 51% of the net. This gives them a high level of security.