Public Blockchain
Definition
A permissionless network where anyone can read the ledger, submit transactions, or run a node. Bitcoin and Ethereum are public. The ledger is openly auditable, which is the property that makes blockchain tracing possible.
- Access model
- Permissionless: anyone can read, transact, or run a node
- Examples
- Bitcoin, Ethereum
- Forensic relevance
- Openly auditable ledger enables transaction tracing
Common questions
How does a public blockchain differ from a private or permissioned one?+
A private or permissioned blockchain restricts who can read the ledger or validate transactions, often to a defined consortium, which limits outside auditability compared with a public chain's fully open transaction history.
Does public visibility mean transactions are tied to real identities?+
No. Addresses on a public blockchain are pseudonymous by default; investigators link an address to a real-world identity only through off-chain data such as exchange KYC records or clustering heuristics applied to the visible transaction graph.
Related terms
- Account Model
- Ethereum's approach, where each address holds a running balance incremented or decremented by transactions. Simpler to reason about but less transparent about...
- Block Confirmation
- The count of blocks added to the chain after the block containing a specific transaction. Higher confirmation counts mean greater computational cost...
- Distributed Ledger
- A transaction record replicated across many independent nodes. Each node holds a full or partial copy and validates new entries against the...
- Private (Permissioned) Blockchain
- A network where participation is restricted to known, approved nodes. Used by banks and supply chains for transaction settlement. Records are not...
- UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output)
- The fundamental accounting unit of the Bitcoin protocol. Each transaction consumes previous UTXOs as inputs and creates new UTXOs as outputs. The...