Before:

- you want to transfer $100,000 to another bank

- you do a wire or ACH

- that’s risky so someone has to verify that you actually have $100,000

After:

- each of your dollars are digitally signed using cryptography

- to transfer them, you share the hashes

- the recipient validates the digital signatures to verify those $100,000 in tokens are legit

It’s all about a system of accounting to reduce risk. With less risk, transfers are faster. Think of it like an api to verify account balances that can only be hacked if the SSL cert for the API is hacked by figuring out the private key