Integrating Blockchain in IoT

With the development of Internet and hardware devices and huge demand of all kinds of data and service, the popularity of IoT is irreversible. According to Milo Werner’s talk in class, there will be more than 50 billion connected devices by 2020. Devices like smart phones, surveillance camera and various kinds of sensors are connected to Internet, generating huge amount of data. However, there are several problems associated with IoT’s development. For example, with tremendous devices connected to Internet, it’s hard for them to communicate with each other. If a centralized control system is used, the computational and network resource needed will be too large. Another example will be the data generated by the sensors currently can be easily modified and hacked. Security and trust issues are key for the application of the data.

During recent years, blockchain techniques are gaining popularity due to not only the cryptocurrency it created but also its advantage of peer-to-peer transaction, identity system, and immutable and traceable records. Integrating blockchain techniques seems to be beneficial for the application of both techniques in multiple ways.

Firstly, blockchain will make sure the data collected by the IoT devices are reliable while IoT will allow blockchain to access real-world data. One specific application that gains a lot of attention recently is the tracking of transportation and storage of medicines like vaccine that require strict temperature control. Recently in China, safety and functionality of vaccine caused concern of people. Some of the vaccine lost their functionality in transportation process due to invalid temperature control. By integrating blockchain and IoT, people could better monitor and track the vaccine they used. By installing temperature sensors with vaccine, temperature data will be collected along its transportation and recorded on blockchain. Once the storage system fails to meet temperature limits, the vaccine will be marked as invalid with the help of smart contract. In this application, blockchain make sure the temperature data and functionality information is traceable and immutable while IoT devices provide the basic data. The usage of smart contract in vaccine’s case facilitates IoT application and reduces cost.

Also, blockchain helps to reduce the cost of transaction and verification. Christian Catalini claimed that blockchain is using an “ecosystem perspective” to drastically reducing the “cost of verification” and the “cost of networking” for IoT transactions — without having “to give too much control to one single entity.” [2] Furthermore, security system based on blockchain seems to be more scalable considering the blockchain itself is designed as a decentralized system.

[1] http://www.itgemini.net/en/itfuwu/28-shuangzixinwen/redianxinxi/308-qukuailian.html

[2] https://www.networkworld.com/article/3250680/internet-of-things/when-iot-met-blockchain.html