Title: Designing the architecture of a blockchain platform: the case of Alastria, a national public permissioned blockchain

Authors: Javier W. Ibáñez; Salvatore Moccia

Addresses: FinTech Legal Observatory, Garrigues Company Law Chair, Pontifical Comillas University, Madrid, Spain; FinTech Legal Observatory, Comillas University, Madrid, Spain ' International University UNIR – La Rioja, Avda. de la Paz, 137, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain

Abstract: The financial services industry is experiencing - or better said, is suffering - an enormous paradigm shift. New technologies, combined with new consumers, are redefining the way financial institutions design products and deliver services. "Visa, for example, is working on bitcoin remittance services, while Mastercard and AMEX are investing in ABRA and the Digital Currency Group, two blockchain startups" (Pejic, 2019). Furthermore, Mastercard has filed four blockchain patents to improve settlement systems. The Alastria case is a still rare phenomenon of national blockchain as a country territorial and jurisdictional case of public permissioned blockchain oriented to combine the satisfaction of public and private interests with full legal compliance.

Keywords: distributed ledger technology; DLT; blockchain governance; Alastria; validator nodes; automated trust; cryptocurrencies; Hyperledger; Ethereum.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPM.2021.118729

International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, 2021 Vol.11 No.4, pp.423 - 440

Received: 30 Nov 2019
Accepted: 07 May 2020
Published online: 03 Nov 2021 *

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