Distributed ledger (DL), as a distributed data management architecture, maintains data records (the ledgers) across distributed nodes based on consensus mechanisms and protocols. It can comprehensively record all information of data ownership, transmission, and trading chains in distributed ledgers. Additionally, data will be not tampered and denied throughout the life cycle of data production and transactions, providing an endorsement for data rights confirmation, protection, and audit. Blockchain is a typical implementation of DL systems. With the emerging digital economy applications including digital currency and data asset trading, DL technologies receive increasingly widespread attention. However, system performance is one of the key technical bottlenecks for large-scale application of DL systems, and ledger performance optimization has become a focus of the academia and industry. The study investigates the methods, technologies, and typical solutions of DL performance optimization from four perspectives of system architecture, ledger data structure, consensus mechanism, and message communication.