City Research Online

Abstract

The integration of Sharded Blockchain (SBC) into Multi-Tier Computing (MTC) often neglects heterogeneous resource capabilities across cloud, fog, and edge-tiers, leading to suboptimal Quality of Service (QoS) and inefficient cross-shard communication. To address these challenges, we propose MTC-SBC, a hybrid framework that synergizes subjective logic-based trust modeling with network slicing. Unlike traditional static approaches, our methodology dynamically assigns network slices to blockchain shards by coupling node reputation, derived from belief, disbelief, and uncertainty parameters, with computational resource states. We formulate this joint slice-placement and leader selection process as a Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) problem, aimed at minimizing processing delays and service costs while maximizing shard reliability. To ensure computational tractability at the edge, we employ a decomposition technique using Rotated Second-Order Cone (RSOC) relaxation and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). This hybrid approach ensures that shard allocation is optimized for resource efficiency and resilient against Sybil attacks. Extensive evaluations on a unified hybrid testbed demonstrate that MTC-SBC achieves a 25% throughput improvement and a 70% enhancement in task completion ratio over baseline protocols. Furthermore, the proposed resource optimization reduces energy consumption by approximately 34%, validating the framework’s suitability for latency-critical and energy-constrained IoT applications.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026, the authors. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Blockchain, Multi-tier computing, Optimization, Reputation, Sharding
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Department of Computer Science
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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