The cryptocurrency question

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So don't get me wrong, I definitely buy into the Blockchain technology and i think a lot of services like Ethereum have promise with things like smart contracts becoming more common. But do we really need a digital currency for everything? For instance, take Boulé- they want to apply Blockchain to voting technology, which would simultaneously open it up by allowing people to vote essentially over the internet, while also preventing a lot of the issues traditionally associated with e-voting like DDOS and identity theft. Is there any reason that a currency should exist for this purpose? Couldn't somebody just start a company like Diebold, which makes voting machines, that would sell a Blockchain-based service using US dollars? Or is the value in digital currency not in them actually being currencies anymore, but rather in acting almost as "shares" in this new business- i.e., you can turn a profit by buying Boulé's currency betting that Boulé's technology will spread, just as you would benefit from Apple selling more phones by buying Apple stock.