# Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers in Retrospective and Perspective

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the evolution, types, and applications of blockchains and distributed ledgers in finance, highlighting their potential in digital currencies, trading, and banking, and comparing various digital cash forms.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of blockchain technology's history, types, and applications in finance, including analysis of digital currencies and their societal roles.

## Key findings

- Public and private ledgers have distinct suitability for different financial purposes.
- Historical prototypes of blockchains show evolving features and challenges.
- Digital currencies like bitcoin and central bank digital cash differ in design and societal impact.

## Abstract

We introduce blockchains and distributed ledgers and describe their potential applications to money and banking. The analysis compares public and private ledgers and outlines the suitability of various types of ledgers for different purposes. Furthermore, a few historical prototypes of blockchains and distributed ledgers are presented, and results of their hard forking are illustrated. Next, some potential applications of distributed ledgers to trading, clearing and settlement, payments, trade finance, etc. are outlined. Monetary circuits are argued to be natural applications for blockchains. Finally, the role of digital currencies in modern society is articulated and various forms of digital cash, such as central bank issued electronic cash, bank money, bitcoin and P2P money, are compared and contrasted. Keywords: blockchains, distributed ledgers, digital currencies, modern monetary circuit; credit creation banking; interconnected banking network.