Ledger is defined as a physical book or digital computer file in which monetary and financial transactions are recorded. Recorded either in the form of a debit or in the form of a credit. Typically, the ledger also includes balances for each individual or account that is part of a particular set of economic records, along with the dates of each financial transaction.

While physical ledgers are getting less and less popular, as digital ledgers are being widely used around the world, in many different scenarios. For example, a company or business can use a digital ledger to track its financial transactions. A ledger can be used to track sales, purchases, or simply the exchange of funds between employees (or between different companies).

When it comes to the digital environment, blockchain can be considered as a prominent example of a digital ledger and is very efficient as it functions as an immutable database. Usually, blockchain is used to track all transactions that take place between cryptocurrency users. For example, the Bitcoin blockchain acts as a digital ledger that stores all Bitcoin transactions in blocks that are linked through cryptographic tokens. Connected blocks form a long chain of blocks (hence, the term blockchain). Once a transaction is added to this block and the block is confirmed, it is almost impossible for this transaction to be reversed, and this is what makes the blockchain so secure and useful.

Apart from cryptocurrency transactions, blockchains may also be suitable for tracking and recording other types of digital data. Therefore, blockchain is more than just a digital ledger, it is a distributed ledger (DLT) technology that can be used in a variety of scenarios, including supply chain, charity, and healthcare.