A generic term for digitised, decentralised public ledger of transactions used, in various forms, for all virtual currencies, and an increasing range of additional applications. Originally developed as the account method for Bitcoin, blockchains use what is known as distributed ledger technology (DLT), which records transactions across many computers, so that the record, or block, cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the consensus of the network.
Transactions recorded between parties are verified by the network in a permanent and immutable way, making them significantly harder to manipulate compared to a central database, whilst also decreasing transactional costs through sharing the same digital ledger.
