Copies of a distributed ledger with multiple blocks are stored on multiple computing devices. A first computing device coming into proximity with a particular object triggers generation of a new block to the distributed ledger, the new block identifying a characteristic of the object and including a hash of a previous block of the distributed ledger. The new block is optionally verified before it is appended onto the distributed ledger and transmitted out to each of the multiple computing devices so that each copy of the distributed ledger includes the new block.