Blockchain has dominated the space imposing itself as the one way to store data. From the creation of Bitcoin, considered to be the first blockchain, a number of other blockchains (using different codes and programming languages) have come out. Ether, Dash, Lightcoin, Monero, and ZCash are a few examples of projects running on their own blockchain. Each trying to improve on its predecessors' code by providing new consensus mechanism to the community.
Being a string of data blocks created in a consecutive and linear manner, it's hard for it to scale. Each block is chained to the previous block carrying data from a previous transaction, to prevent a double spend. With more block issued, the network becomes increasingly more secure but heavy and expensive to run.
Although some projects like Nano (block lattice) and Komodo (atomic swaps) have tried to solve it's scalability and transaction issues, they are still limited within the structure of the blockchain. The only limitation that distributed ledger tech (DLT) has is in its hardware and in our own creativity.
BLOCKCHAIN HYPE IS DRAWING TO A CLOSE:
Urgency to solve these problems are becoming increasingly apparent if the dream, shared by many cryptos holders, of an alternate financial system adopted by all should succeed. If mass adoption were to occur tomorrow, crypto would be on its knees. It would need to match, or better surpass Visa and Mastercard transaction rate as well making the whole UX more friendly. A new type of distributed ledger tech (DLT) is required. Potentially game-changing projects are adopting this latter technology as a way to bypass blockchains' sluggish limitations.WHY IS DLT EXITING?
DLT is a blank canvas whereby any coder with a bit of imagination (and funding) can create a whole new alternate data storage universe. Let's imagine the Internet being a normal PokéBall and DLT being the random Pokémon enclosed inside of it. Unless the PokéBall carries the name of the Pokémon or it's released, it will remain a mystery. Nobody can know what form or name the Pokémon could take until it comes out. This allows DLT to constantly innovate itself outside the restriction of a specific data model such as a blockchain.WHY ISN'T DLT SUPERIOR TO BLOCKCHAIN?
Because blockchain is DLT, but DLT is not blockchain. Distributed ledger tech is the general term for all ledgers out there which includes blockchain. Therefore we can say that blockchain, being a specif Pokémons like Charizard, is a form of DLT.Got it? :)
