Distributed ledgers do not have centralised, which means they allow multiple participants to update, validate, and store the same database at the same time. This makes DLT more fault tolerant and eliminates the risk of one point of failure.
DLTs also allow the creation of smart contracts which are self-executing contracts that can be programmed to validate or execute agreements between parties. The technology also offers the transparency of each participant by allowing them to view the same transaction information.
While DLTs reduce the requirement for a central authority however, they require significant computing power to run their consensus algorithms www.minexxo.com/2023/06/04/what-is-distributed-ledger and process transactions. To mitigate this cost DLTs typically reward active participation by offering virtual cryptocurrency.
Blockchain is a type of DLT but there are many other. For instance a Directed Acyclic graph (DAG) network has a different structure for data as compared to a blockchain. It also employs gossip protocols to share the transaction data between nodes. Transactions are added to the DAG in chronological order and verified using a combination of virtual vote and a hashing algorithm as well as other protocols.
While distributed ledgers offer a myriad of advantages, it’s important to know what they’re not. While they increase transparency, accountability and security, they are not a replacement for centralized databases. Organisations have for a long time gathered data from multiple sources on paper or in siloed programs, bringing it together into a central database only once or twice. DLT allows these pieces of data to be shared instantly with participants while maintaining identical copies on their devices or nodes. This can save time and money by avoiding costly and time-consuming reconciliations.