These non-work blockchains are really scammy. Anyone around here have a journaled database that's not selling? Call it a blockchain, and wall street will open its wallets.
It seems that they don't really need blockchains (meaning fault tolerant consensus algorithms). I'm doubtful that these networks would be truly open, that they would allow untrusted partners on it. Auditing and logging should be enough.
What they really need is peer to peer protocol standards for clearing. "Blockchain" seems to be enabling a discussion on this.
Algorithms/protocols to solve the consensus problem in the presence of arbitrary "Byzantine" faults have been around for a long time (since the 1980s, at least e.g. [1]), and they keep getting better. Make the network closed-access (i.e. where the owners of all nodes are known/approved), and voila, you've also got resistance to Sybil attacks.
The end result is something with blockchain characteristics, but at lower computational cost than Proof-of-Work. Maybe that's not something everyone wants, but banks do.
The article explains why this is not true: back-end financial technology is boring and banks weren't willing to spend enough money or risk on upgrading them until overwhelming blockchain blockchain blockchain hype pushed them over the edge.
* Better BFT algorithms (e.g. lower network load, more reliable in practice)
* Faster computers
* Better computer networks
* Cheaper storage
* Better software development and deployment practices (faster, more reliable, more secure)
* and yes, the recent interest in BFT spurred by Bitcoin.
For example, the original algorithms had network load that was exponential in the number of nodes, O(2^N). Some newer non-POW algorithms are O(N*polylog(N)).
According to coindesk;
"Digital Asset said Hyperledger includes a "prototype implementation" of the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus module, which would serve as an alternative to the mining process." [2]
