Public-Ledger or Public-Journal

Said Bitcoin (To speak generally; Block-Chain) 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.

Read more: link

This means Ledger keeps classified and cleared transactions instead of Journals.

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

Please add references to your answers!

M.Fooladgar

Posted 2017-06-16T05:47:14.987

Reputation: 123

Why do you say "the UTXO are optional"? Actually, the blockchain is optional, there are plenty nodes that only store the UTXO set but forget the blockchain after validating it (we call these "pruning nodes")' – Murch – 2017-06-16T07:21:58.063

Answers

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.

Murch

Posted 2017-06-16T05:47:14.987

Reputation: 41 609

1Journal has another connotation in databases: you write to a journal before applying an operation, so that after a crash, you can fix the halfway-consistent database. – Nick ODell – 2017-06-16T06:36:34.647

I mean, it sounds to me like calling the blockchain a journal and the UTXO set a ledger would be more accurate, especially as the UTXO set is the more important part and the blockchain just the means to achieve it. ;) – Murch – 2017-06-16T07:20:24.163