A public ledger is a visible, accessible register of all transactions that take place on a blockchain network. It is a public ledger without which the trust of the very decentralized systems relying on neither banks, governments, nor private companies would be non-existent. Instead of one single entity owning the records, the same data is actually being held and modified by thousands of computers spread all over the world.
The whole communication will be taking place in a block; it may be the sending of bitcoin, smart contract interaction, or token transfer. Once the block is confirmed and added to the chain, it becomes an immutable part of the ledger where the records cannot be modified or deleted. The chances of fraud are minimized and the history of the network stays honest and consistent.
The ledger is accessible to the general public, but at the same time, it does not include the personal identities of participants in the corresponding transactions. Only the wallet addresses are linked to the transactions and not the real names, thus giving the users quite a lot of privacy and the ability to demand accountability from the network in case of problems. Market analysts, software developers, and anyone else can simply take a look at the ledger to keep track of the funds, check the volume of transactions, or even verify the amounts.
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In conclusion, a public ledger can be thought of as an open database that logs every operation on a blockchain and at the same time allows anyone to prove the accuracy of the network’s transaction history.