To overcome these challenges and to set up a sustainable, highly interoperable and trust-inducing data backbone, blockchain technology provides a viable approach. On the contrary, it may act as a horizontal operating system spanning an overarching trust layer on the existing digital and physical infrastructure (Deloitte, 2016). Authorised stakeholders, such as national regulators in the transport, energy and agriculture sectors, would have the opportunity to build suitable applications on the blockchain layer, therefore enabling them to leverage existing and compliant technology. Figure 10 schematically illustrates the horizontal operating system encompassing a modular application layer.