# Introduction
In this guide, we'll explore how to provide chain data to LDK upon startup and as new blocks are mined. This allows LDK to maintain channel state and monitor for on-chain channel activity.
LDK maintains channels with your node's peers during the course of node
operation. When a new channel is opened, the ChannelManager will keep track of
the channel's state and tell the ChainMonitor that a new channel should be
watched. The ChainMonitor does so by maintaining a ChannelMonitor for each
channel.
When a new block is mined, it is connected to the chain while other blocks may be disconnected if reorganized out. Transactions are confirmed or unconfirmed during this process. You are required to feed this activity to LDK which will process it by:
- Updating channel state
- Signaling back transactions to filter
- Broadcasting transactions if necessary
We will walk through this process as depicted here:
