ABSTRACT
Distributed ledger technologies represent decentralized databases, without the requirement for a central authority to authenticate and validate transactions. Blockchain technology is one of these technologies that provides a record of digital transactions that have been executed and validated by consensus of a majority of participants in the system. It uses software that processes on the order of the newly created and connected blocks via cryptographic means to ensure security and integrity. It has a verified record of each transaction that has been executed till date, which cannot be removed from the system, thereby ensuring the integrity of information. Although Bitcoin is the most popular application of blockchain, it has been used in diverse application domains such as healthcare, logistics, and security. While blockchain enables fairness and prevention from denial-of-service attacks, it lacks in transaction processing time as compared with credit cards and other online services. Hashgraph, another distributed ledger technology, has emerged recently, which focuses on addressing this limitation, promising extraordinary improvement in transaction processing times. Although hashgraph was initially deployed in private settings, public deployment has been recently launched, enabling its adoption for wider application domains. Within this context, this chapter is focused on presenting a comparative study of these distributed ledger technologies, identifying strengths and weaknesses to highlight potential application domains.
