You can (implicitly) convert it to another pointer type, e.g.

    int *buf = malloc(sizeof(*buf));

(It's noteworthy that while there's an implicit conversion above, there's no such thing as an implicit cast.)

This is a pretty well-regarded answer, with motivation for why you should not cast [1].

Of course it's not something everyone agrees to, but at least a lot of people seem to.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/605845/do-i-cast-the-res...

Generic data structures work great if they use a void* since malloc returns a void*. Just malloc your structs, and suddenly a single set of 10 or so functions can work with all data types to build queues, lists, hash maps, etc

You can compare it for (in)equality to another void pointer.

You can assign it to any data pointer variable, and you can printf("%p") it, for example.