I'm a huge fan of cryptocurrencies and related decentralized technologies, but that is immaterial to the fact that anyone who acts obsessively focused on the blockchain data structure is missing an appreciation of what the actual underlying innovation is - please re-read my previous comment, it seems clear you didn't spend time thinking about the actual words I wrote.

> the interesting part is how you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units.

Hi! Blockchain at Berkeley executive here, we totally agree with you, and with all the buzzwords being thrown around these days, skepticism is understandable.

At the end of the day, we see blockchain as a general term. We have humble roots as the Bitcoin Association of Berkeley, but we wanted something agnostic and recognizable for the future, so we ended up with this. Sure, blockchains are just a data structure but the cryptographically enforced units wouldn't exist if it weren't for blockchain, or something like it (IOTA Tangle). I can assure you that the people here are only interested in the real stuff. :)

Some of the things we do here are related to teaching ([1]), Ethereum Dapp Development, and whitepaper talks. [2]

[1] https://blockchain.berkeley.edu/decal [2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5sgoRfoSp3jeX4DEqKLwKg

More important than the Internet? More important than computers? More important than electricity? That's ridiculous.