
… or less be admitting that a new coin is being created with each hard fork and thus isn’t utilized. Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash could both do this as part of their next scheduled hard fork, but they want to be perceived as continuing the old chain and not starting a new one, so they don’t start a fresh ledger with the same balances, even if the ledger is technically the same.
The main thing distinguishing a blockchain from a normal database is that there are specific rules about how to put data into the database. That is, it cannot conflict with some other data that’s already in the database (consistent), it’s append-only (immutable), and the data itself is locked to an owner (ownable), it’s replicable and available. Finally, everyone agrees on what the state of the things in the database are (canonical) without a central party (decentralized).