  Blockchains are decentralized; are they genuinely? We analyze blockchain
decentralization's often-overlooked but quantifiable dimension: geospatial
distribution of transaction processing. Blockchains bring with them the
potential for geospatially distributed transaction processing. They enable
validators from geospatially distant locations to partake in consensus
protocols; we refer to them as minority validators. Based on our observations,
in practice, most validators are often geographically concentrated in close
proximity. Furthermore, we observed that minority validators tend not to meet
the performance requirements, often misidentified as crash failures.
Consequently, they are subject to punishment by jailing (removal from the
validator set) and/or slashing (penalty in native tokens). Our emulations,
under controlled conditions, demonstrate the same results, raising serious
concerns about the potential for the geospatial centralization of validators.
To address this, we developed a solution that easily integrates with consensus
protocols, and we demonstrated its effectiveness.
