Example embodiments provide for secure storage and accessing of confidential information by a distributed system and for securely executing a function of the distributed system. Responsive to processing a function request identifying a function of the distributed system by a node computing entity, application program code corresponding to the function is accessed within a trusted execution environment. Based on data stored in a secure ledger maintained by the distributed system, the application program code is executed to generate a result within the trusted execution environment. A new entry comprising the result is generated and at least a portion thereof is encrypted using an encryption key within the trusted execution environment. The encrypted new entry is posted to the secure ledger.