<p>You're right. The Bitcoin blockchain is not a ledger, but rather the network's transaction journal. It's actually the UTXO set that is the ledger of all Bitcoin balances.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(UTXO - Unspent Transactions Output - is optional)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If we take a step back and think about it, what are we more interested in? The compiled history of all payments, or the current state of the network's balances?</p>
<p>Obviously, the latter is more useful for anyone that wants to transact on the network. The UTXO set allows to check whether someone is able to pay, and upon update whether we were paid.</p>
<p>The blockchain is merely the means of converging on a common state of the UTXO set. We require the blockchain to compile the UTXO set, as the journal is used to derive the ledger. In fact, pruning full nodes throw away part of the blockchain after processing it, but they all keep the UTXO set. So, while it is conflating different aspects of the system, it seems to me that people speak about &quot;Distributed Public Ledgers&quot;, because they care about the balances more than the transactions.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2017-06-16T06:16:35.930Z
2021-02-01T19:36:16.827Z
2021-02-01T19:36:16.827Z
Murch
<p>Bitcoin (or more generally, blockchain) is a Distributed Public Ledger and as we know:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The <strong>Journal</strong> is a book where all the transactions are recorded immediately when they take place which is then classified and transferred into concerned account known as <strong>Ledger</strong>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-journal-and-ledger.html#ixzz4k8nsPw00" rel="nofollow noreferrer">keydifferences.com</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This means that it's a &quot;Ledger&quot; that keeps classified and cleared transactions instead of a &quot;Journal&quot;.</p>
<p>We know Bitcoin stores all transactions (UTXO - <em>Unspent Transactions Output</em> - is <strong>optional</strong>) so why do we call it <strong>Ledger</strong> instead of <strong>Journal</strong>?</p>
<p>Please add references to your answers!</p>

<blockchain><terminology><utxo-set>
Why is the blockchain called Distributed Public "Ledger" and not "Journal"?
M.Fooladgar
# Why is the blockchain called Distributed Public "Ledger" and not "Journal"?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-06-16)

Bitcoin (or more generally, blockchain) is a Distributed Public Ledger and as we know:

> The **Journal** is a book where all the transactions are recorded immediately when they take place which is then classified and transferred into concerned account known as **Ledger**.
>
> Source: [keydifferences.com](http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-journal-and-ledger.html#ixzz4k8nsPw00)

This means that it's a "Ledger" that keeps classified and cleared transactions instead of a "Journal".

We know Bitcoin stores all transactions (UTXO - *Unspent Transactions Output* - is **optional**) so why do we call it **Ledger** instead of **Journal**?

Please add references to your answers!

**Tags:** blockchain, terminology, utxo-set


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-06-16. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

You're right. The Bitcoin blockchain is not a ledger, but rather the network's transaction journal. It's actually the UTXO set that is the ledger of all Bitcoin balances.

> (UTXO - Unspent Transactions Output - is optional)

If we take a step back and think about it, what are we more interested in? The compiled history of all payments, or the current state of the network's balances?

Obviously, the latter is more useful for anyone that wants to transact on the network. The UTXO set allows to check whether someone is able to pay, and upon update whether we were paid.

The blockchain is merely the means of converging on a common state of the UTXO set. We require the blockchain to compile the UTXO set, as the journal is used to derive the ledger. In fact, pruning full nodes throw away part of the blockchain after processing it, but they all keep the UTXO set. So, while it is conflating different aspects of the system, it seems to me that people speak about "Distributed Public Ledgers", because they care about the balances more than the transactions.


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