•  Cryptography, in the form of hashes and digital signatures, provides a secure way to initiate a transaction that helps verify ownership and the availability of the asset for transfer. •  Consensus algorithms provide a process for transactions to be confirmed and added to the single ledger.
While Bitcoin was originally associated with the concept of a universally available, publicly shared digital ledger technology without any central authority, many of the use cases that are  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  currently under development and discussion rely on "permissioned" ledgers in which only permitted, known participants can validate transactions.