Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is the infrastructure in which encrypted and fragmented data is stored in a decentralized manner. A distributed ledger is a database spread and synchronized over a network across multiple sites, institutions, or geographies.
Network participants can access, update, and support data verification processes within their authorization. Since the data is located at more than one point and the system operates with the consensus established among the network participants, there is no need for an authority or administrator.
Distributed ledger technology, more commonly known as blockchain technology, was introduced to the world along with Bitcoin. Its first widespread use was with Bitcoin, which emerged in 2008. Bitcoin is an intermediary and secure payment system developed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, when the global financial system collapsed. With the popularization of Bitcoin crypto money, studies on different sectors related to blockchain, which is the distributed ledger technology behind it, are started.
has been started. Distributed ledger technologies have been developed due to the fact that the blockchain technology is not sufficient in terms of speed and scalability in the studies.
Distributed ledger technology is thought to have far-reaching effects on sectors and institutions that rely on third parties.
How Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Works
Since there is no authority in decentralized structures, data must be stored, accessed, updated and verified in consensus. With DLT, all data is securely stored using cryptography and can only be accessed using the key and cryptographic signature.
Distributed Ledger Technologies
We can list the types of distributed ledger technologies as follows;
- Hedera Hashgraph: Hashgraph is a patented distributed ledger technology developed by Swirlds. It was developed using Lisp and Java programming language. Every transaction that takes place in the Hashgraph network is called an event. Each event includes timestamp, hash of two previous events, transactions and electronic signature information.
- DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph): It is a distributed ledger technology open to everyone. In Directed Acyclic Graph technology, there are no transaction fees as there are no blocks and miners to add data to the network. Transactions are not kept as a linear chain. Transactions are recorded non-linearly. In the used reconciliation protocol, each transaction confirms the previous two transactions and records the transaction information.
- Holochain: It is a distributed ledger technology open to everyone. Holochain, unlike the blockchain, is based on the fact that participants create separate chains instead of a single chain. In blockchain technology, transactions are made on a common single chain for all participants in the network, while in Holochain, participants store data on their own local chains as part of the public network. Participants record only their own transactions, not all of the data on the network.
- Tempo: It uses the sharding method to distribute data among many nodes in the network. While recording any transaction, the logical clock number is recorded with it. Each node increments its logical counter by one for every transaction it witnesses.
