The disclosure relates to decentralized management of nodes in a blockchain network. Participants may agree to a consensus rules and implement them as smart contracts. For example, one rule may specify that a node will accept a change proposal only when its local policies and/or data allow it to implement the change. A smart contract may implement this rule and deploy it across the blockchain network for each node to follow. Other participants, through their nodes, may propose changes to the blockchain network, and each node may consult its copy of the smart contract to determine whether to vote to approve the change request and apply the change request locally.