This post is Part 4 of a multi-part blog post series we will periodically release to outline Sig's engineering updates. You can find other Sig engineering articles here.
Blockchain technology has revolutionized the way we record information by introducing an approach that is inherently secure and trustworthy by design. At the core of any blockchain system is a ledger, which ensures data integrity, transparency, and security. Among all blockchains, Solana stands out for its unrivaled speed and scalability. Central to its performance, Solana's ledger is not only a record of transactions but also a decentralized database that is finely tuned to maximize performance.
In this blog post, we'll explore Solana's ledger. We'll uncover the motivations behind its design, dissect its components, such as blocks and shreds, and understand how it functions as the backbone of the Solana blockchain. In our next blog post, we’ll expand on this article to explain how we've implemented Solana’s ledger in Sig.
The core responsibilities of Solana are to store information, distribute information, and allow changes to that information. This means Solana is a database. What sets a blockchain apart from a traditional database is its unique method of storing data and how that approach unlocks decentralized trust.