Blockchain is emerging as a preeminent decentralized ledger
and receiving increasing attention from researchers, practi-
tioners, organizations and the public. Initially, blockchain
was developed to address the “double spending” problem
in cryptocurrencies, but recently, many new applications
of blockchain have been proposed or are being developed.
Blockchain allows sharing data in a decentralized, transpar-
ent and immutable way, using a peer-to-peer network, with-
out the need to trust any particular entity. To achieve that
in public blockchain, where the peers are a priori unknown,
efficiency and scalability are often sacrificed.
In this paper we present a novel partition of the blockchain
into smaller chains, to allow association of sub-chains, wal-
lets and transactions with real-world concepts, such as ge-
ographical areas, and by this, improve scalability and secu-
rity. Our contribution is threefold. First, we discuss the
utilization of a real-world hierarchical structure, such as a
geospatial subdivision, to partition the ledger into a tree of
connected blockchains, in order to increase scalability and
provide a tradeoff between privacy and transaction latency.
Second, we illustrate the use of a geospatial partitioning
to support geofencing, in order to add security to cryp-
tocurrencies and other blockchain applications. Third, we
present proof-of-location as an alternative to proof-of-work,
to cope with the large waste of energy caused by proof-of-
work, which may be inflated by the partitioning.