Meanings
plural distributed ledgers
- A consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple locations.
As mentioned, a blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions implemented as data batched into blocks that use cryptographic validation to link the blocks together.
2018, Joseph J. Bambara et al., Blockchain: A Practical Guide to Developing Business, Law, and Technology Solutions, McGraw Hill Professional, →ISBN, page 61 more example
Another distributed ledger platform, called Ethereum, works off the same technology that Bitcoin does, but it is run as an open-source software project, meaning the software code is freely available for anyone to work on.
2016 April 6, Quentin Hardy, “Ripple Aims to Put Every Transaction on One Ledger”, in The New York Times, →ISSNSynonyms: shared ledger, ledger
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple locations.
Translations
Chinese Mandarin 分散式賬本 /分散式账本
- 分散式賬本 /分散式账本 (fēnsànshì zhàngběn)consensus
Finnish hajautettu tilikirja
- hajautettu tilikirjaconsensus
French registre partagé
- registre partagéconsensus
Cite this entry
distributed ledger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/distributed%20ledger
“distributed ledger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/distributed%20ledger. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “distributed ledger,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/distributed%20ledger.
Source: distributed ledger on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.