Decentralized ledger system and method for enterprises

A non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium having encoded thereon a program comprising machine instructions implementing a distributed ledger to store and manage enterprise transactions, wherein one or more processors execute the machine instructions to:

• create an overlay to a physical communications network, comprising the processors:
• identifying physical nodes in the physical communications network,
• assigning an overlay node to a physical node, and
• connecting the overlay node to the physical node through an application layer of the physical communications network;
• designate a plurality of overlay nodes of the overlay as super nodes, wherein the processors:
• receive an identification of a node and an identification of resource capabilities of the node, and
• determine the identified resource capabilities of the node are sufficient to allow the node to function as a super node, comprising, in a bandwidth-limited environment, using a link sensing mechanism to determine sufficient bandwidth is available at the node for transmission of information;
• receive, at physical nodes corresponding to the super nodes, transactions from physical nodes corresponding to the one or more overlay nodes;
• assign, through the super nodes, the transactions to a variable size block;
• validate, through the super nodes, the variable size block, comprising the processors at a plurality of the super nodes, execute a block validity voting process in which the processors:
• compute a hash based on the variable size block;
• compare the hash to a target value;
• generate a block valid vote when the hash meets the target value and a block invalid vote when the hash does not meet the target value;
• accumulate block valid votes and block invalid votes from the super nodes;
• and
• designate the block valid when at least a majority of votes in the block validity voting process are block valid votes,
• link the validated variable size block to the distributed ledger;
• and
• replicate the distributed ledger at all overlay nodes of the overlay.

A computer-implemented method for storing and managing enterprise data using a distributed ledger, comprising:

• receiving by a processor, transactions from nodes in a communications network;
• through an application layer of the communications network, aggregating one or more of the transactions in a block, comprising:
• verifying each of the one or more transactions,
• creating a hash of the one or more transactions, and
• adding the one or more transactions to a block and adding the hash to a header of the block;
• through the application layer, validating the block, comprising:
• designating one or more of the nodes in the communications network as trusted nodes, comprising determining a node has sufficient computing resources for validating the block, comprising, in a bandwidth-limited environment, using a link sensing mechanism to determine sufficient bandwidth is available at a node for transmission of information,
• executing a consensus algorithm by at least a majority of the trusted nodes in the communications network, and
• generating a hash of the block;
• comprising:
• generating a hash of the block,
• comparing the hash to a target value,
• generating a block valid vote when the hash meets the target value and a block invalid vote when the hash does not meet the target value,
• accumulating block valid votes and block invalid votes from the trusted nodes, and
• designate the block valid when at least a majority of votes are block valid votes;
• linking the block to a predecessor block in the distributed ledger, comprising verifying the hash of the block is lower than a hash of a top block in the distributed ledger;
• and
• replicating the distributed ledger across the communications network, comprising multicasting the block to each node in the communications network.