Adoption of Blockchain in IoT: Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

Data is streamed from sensors, through fog devices, and onto a centralized Cloud server in traditional Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems. Issues that arise include privacy concerns due to third-party management of Cloud servers, single points of failure, a bottleneck in data flows, and difficulties in regularly updating firmware for millions of smart devices from a point of security and maintenance perspective. Blockchain, the underlying technology of Bitcoin, was initially primarily intended for the transfer of monetary value. Nevertheless, researchers and security analysts from all over the world are focusing on the blockchain to address the security and privacy issues of IoT due to its decentralized architecture, fault tolerance, and cryptographic security benefits like pseudonymous identities, data integrity, and authentication. Blockchain technology protects users by avoiding reliable third parties. This has inspired researchers to investigate blockchain’s adoption into the IoT ecosystem. In this paper, let us understand more about blockchain, its application in IoT, challenges while handling IoT data on the blockchain, and its security solutions.