HIERARCHICAL WEIGHTED CONSENSUS FOR PERMISSIONED BLOCKCHAINS

A method of reaching consensus in a blockchain network including a plurality of nodes, including: clustering the nodes into a plurality of sites; randomly selecting a node at each site as a representative; initializing a weight for each node; receiving, by a first representative of a first site, a plurality of transactions received by nodes in the first site; constructing, by the first representative, a first block including the plurality of transactions received by the first representative; performing a weighted consensus mechanism to verify the first block, wherein each of nodes in the first site participates in a weighted Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism and wherein the consensus is based upon each node's weight; performing a BFT consensus mechanism by the plurality of representatives on the first block; updating each nodes weight; and updating the representative for each site by selecting the node at each site with the highest weight.