A system and method are provided for instantiating a blockchain in a telecommunications network. The method includes identifying a smart contract having S transactions; encoding the S transactions into a sub-blockchain; selecting K edge gate nodes of the telecommunications network from among N of the edge gate nodes according to an ant colony system algorithm, wherein each of the edge gate nodes operates at an edge of the telecommunications network, and wherein S≤K; and allocating the sub-blockchain as one or more virtual network functions among the K edge gate nodes.