A Two-Tier Blockchain Architecture for the Digital Transformation of Multilateralism

摘要

Multilateral organizations have been a major force for economic development and cooperation, but also face several challenges. We believe innovative technologies such as blockchain are an excellent fit for multilateralism and have the potential to deliver substantial economic impacts to all parties at all levels. This paper proposes a two-tier blockchain architecture to facilitate both the governance of multi-lateral agreements, and the execution of projects and services that are governed by such agreements. The blockchain-based architecture is meant to enhance trust among participating entities by having a shared, transparent, and immutable record, automated and traceable execution of the mutual agreements using smart contracts, and the opportunity for each participant to not only have a fair voting power on decisions, but can also get rewarded by running a blockchain node and thus making the overall architecture more robust. Technically, our prototype explored the various ways for the different blockchain platforms in the two-tier architecture to interoperate. We have implemented two different interoperability solutions, and plan to continue our exploration. Overall, we believe such a technology architecture is ideally suited for multilateral initiatives, and plan to explore its implementation in the field.