COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION
AND TECHNOLOGY
Department of Computer Science
The Convergence of IoT and Blockchain:
Challenges and Opportunities.
INTRODUCTION.
The concept “Internet of things” generally refers to connecting things with
the internet. These devices ranges from household appliances to the
sophisticated tool used in industrial processes, thus making them able to
send and receive data through the internet. This architecture is built with
the help of sensors that collect data from the surroundings, which is
processed by the microcontroller, and then according to that control signals
are passed to the interconnected things. Although this cutting edge
technology provide enormous benefits but at the same time there are some
challenges which needs to be addressed.
Another cutting edge technology which need to be discussed here is
Blockchain. It is a distributed database of records which are called blocks.
Each block contains the record of all the transactions that have been
executed and shared among peers and are encrypted by cryptographic hash.
Each transaction is verified by all the participants and then added in the
block. The main advantage of Blockchain over the conventional
client/server architecture is that the records of transactions is difficult
(nearly impossible) to alter or temper.
IoT and Blockchain are cutting edge technologies that plays an important
role in shaping the future of mankind. While both offer numerous benefits,
these technologies also come with certain limitations as well. Combining
both technologies can overcome these limitations.
This aim of this research is to find the constraints in implementing IoT with
the peer-to-peer approach. In particular, Blockchain which provides a
secure and efficient solution. Also the aim is to carry a literature review in
order to understand the possibility of convergence of IoT and Blockchain.
The following are the Research objectives.
 In Which domains we can use Blockchain technology beyond crypt
currencies?
 Is Blockchain applicable to IoT?
 Challenges and Opportunities to the proposed system?
LITERATURE REVIEW
The creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto[1] described Blockchain
technology as “Peer-to-peer structure” that can create trust between sender
and receiver in a trustless environment. The Bitcoin commands are
grouped into a structure called block. Each block will be connected to the
previous one by keeping the cryptographic hash of the previous transaction
and the public key of next owner. Each time a transaction is made the
digital signature will be passed to next owner. The nodes in Blockchain
which have high computational capabilities and can operate complex task
are called miners. The hash assigned to a block will be verified by all the
blocks. Once hash is verified, the block will be added to Blockchain. This
is known as consensus mechanism. Block hash represent the work done by
the miners and is called proof-of work. [2]
The term “Internet of things” generally refers to connecting things with the
internet. These devices ranges from household appliances to the
sophisticated tool used in industrial processes, thus making them able to
send and receive data through the internet. This architecture is built with
the help of sensors that collect data from the surroundings, which is
processed by the microcontroller, and then according to that control signals
are passed to the interconnected things. Although this cutting edge
technology provide enormous benefits but at the same time there are some
challenges which needs to be addressed.Despite the benefits provided by
these services, critical privacy issues still exist. The connected devices
transmit the personal information which reveals the personal preferences
and behavior. This making the data vulnerable to any kind of misuse.
The aim of this research is to find the constraints in implementing IoT with
the peer-to-peer approach. In particular, Blockchain which provides a
secure and efficient solution. Also the aim is to carry a literature review in
order to understand the possibility of convergence of IoT and Blockchain.
Use Cases of Blockchain beyond Cryptocurrencies.
Global Payment:
Global payment has become complicated and time consuming because of
centralized approach as there are many intermediaries that are involved in
verifying the transaction. There are many remittance companies that are
already using Blockchain such as Bitspark and Apra [3].
Vehicular Cyber System.
The autonomous driving vehicles are based on vehicular cyber system[4]
for improving road safety and efficiency. But the security and privacy is a
key concern. Blockchain with its features such as decentralization,
anonymity and security can play an important role in this regard.
Smart Home:
Blockchain in the context of smart home can be integrate with IoT, to
provide a secure way to communicate with the home appliance from a far
off location. [5]However integrating both cutting edge technologies in this
context is not straight forward. As there are many challenges regarding
high resources for POW, master nodes and low scalability of
Blockchain.[5]
Health Care:
Personal health record is a sensitive information and need to be dealt with
high security. Such records can be stored in Blockchain. The private key is
responsible for granting access to the authorized person.[6]
Identity Management:
With Blockchain users can take store his/her information in a block. And
share it through cryptographic communication. The users can be verified
with the help of digital signatures. Once the information is stored in a
block, it cannot be changed. Blockchain Identity as a Service is a type of
IDaaS which is designed to provide an identity and authentication
management. The BIDaaS is a private Blockchain. The service offering
user has access to BIDaaS, but only read permission not write
permission.[7]
Identity Management: Personal ID & Voting
Current voting system has flaws, and it is hard to verify the authenticity of
votes. Therefor in near future a Blockchain based voting system will
provide secure voting system. [8]
Is Blockchain applicable to IoT?
Current IoT systems are built on centralized client/server model, which
require all the devices connected to a centralized server. This model will
not be able to provide an efficient solution near future, as the number of
devices are increasing exponentially. Researches have shown that by the
end of 2025, number of devices connected to IoT will increase upto 75.44
billion[9].
Despite these great opportunities offered by IoT technologies, maintaining
the reliability and accuracy of data obtained from these devices remain a
problem that has not been fully addressed.
Blockchain can be a solution to the security problem of IoT systems.[10]
As Blockchain technology provides a high level of security, privacy,
authentication, and device authorization for the data to be recorded and can
be used to secure systems that use IoT devices.
Challenges of Blockchain with IoT:
Although there is no doubt that Blockchain can be a solution to the
centralized approach of IoT, but still the convergence of these two cutting
edge technologies would cause some challenges. This research aims to
explore these challenges. Some of them are given below:
Scalability:
The IoT network consist of heterogeneous devices, which are huge in
number. Thus scalability of network will be a key concern. So these system
should be able to address issues such as mechanism to deal with the
growing number of devices and support scalability both on long and short
term environment.[11].
Discovery of Nodes and Naming:
The Blockchain technology is not designed for IoT Networks. The nodes
in Blockchain are not meant to find other nodes. This approach will not
work for IoT as IoT devices will keep moving which will change their
corresponding IP address and topology.[12]
Legal code of conduct:
The Blockchain is relatively a new technology that has the ability to
connect different people from different countries without having any legal
code of conduct to follow. This is a serious issue for both manufacturers
and service providers. This will be the major barrier in adopting
Blockchain as a solution for IoT.[13]
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS:
Although significant research has been in this context, still there exist areas
which need to be address. Some of the research questions which need to be
address are
 The edge IoT devices have less computational capabilities. So how
the miner node will be decided?
 New protocols and standards need to be defined?
 What are the rules and regulations that ensures best use of iot with
Blockchain?
REFERENCE
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