Blockchain as IoT Economy Enabler: A Review of Architectural Aspects

Abstract

In the IoT-based economy, a large number of subjects (companies, public bodies, or private citizens) are willing to buy data or services offered by subjects that provide, operate, or host IoT devices. To support economic transactions in this setting, and to pave the way for the implementation of decentralized algorithmic governance powered by smart contracts, the adoption of the blockchain has been proposed both in scientific literature and in actual projects. The blockchain technology promises a decentralized payment system independent of (and possibly cheaper than) conventional electronic payment systems. However, there are a number of aspects that need to be considered for an effective IoT–blockchain integration. In this review paper, we start from a number of real IoT projects and applications that (may) take advantage of blockchain technology to support economic transactions. We provide a reasoned review of several architectural choices in light of typical requirements of those applications and discuss their impact on transaction throughput, latency, costs, limits on ecosystem growth, and so on. We also provide a survey of additional financial tools that a blockchain can potentially bring to an IoT ecosystem, with their architectural impact. In the end, we observe that there are very few examples of IoT projects that fully exploit the potential of the blockchain. We conclude with a discussion of open problems and future research directions to make blockchain adoption easier and more effective for supporting an IoT economy.

Prospects of blockchain governance: Understanding key public values, principles, challenges, and opportunities

“…However, there is still a lack of holistic understanding in both professional and academic literature of how the technology could be fully realized other than in the context of crypto‐security and what public values it could bring with it to these sectors (e.g., political, public, economic, social, technological or academic ones). Several scholars mentioned different public values that could be potentially yielded from the implementation of blockchain‐driven platforms in various public sector areas, such as the generation of democratic participation in using electronic voting platforms, for example, in political and administrative contexts, and decentralized tools to ensure trust and control in public institutional contexts (AlAbri et al, 2022; Benabdallah et al, 2022; Cagigas et al, 2023; Taş & Tanrıöver, 2020; Verma & Sheel, 2022), better management of municipal services in the public sector and promotion of public sector innovations (Abdullah & Jusoh, 2022; Alexopoulos et al, 2019; França et al, 2020; Ghazal et al, 2022; Shari & Malip, 2022; Warkentin & Orgeron, 2020), automation of public information processes (Kassen, 2022; Li & Liang, 2022; Mohamed et al, 2022; Roth et al, 2023; Tailor et al, 2022), increased level of cybersecurity in the financial sector (Aydın & Yükçü, 2022; Mahmood et al, 2022; Nelaturu et al, 2022; Pennino et al, 2022; Sarathy, 2022), collaboration and transparency in advancing more efficient data management and promotion of decentralized information infrastructure platforms in technological contexts (Benchaya Gans et al, 2022; Cila et al, 2020; Inwood & Zappavigna, 2023; Ning et al, 2021; Shuaib et al, 2021). A number of academic works were also concentrated on explaining the phenomena of blockchain per se through the prism of theoretical benefits and challenges it could bring to different sectors of the economy (Arbabi et al, 2022; Habib et al, 2022; Khan, Malik, et al, 2022; Li et al, 2023; Yavuz, 2022) (see Table 1).…”

“…Thus, to tamper or corrupt data in the blockchain network, a potential perpetrator has to change information in each of the consecutive blocks or even more so in all cross‐referenced blocks from other blockchain ledgers in a consecutive manner, which is practically impossible to do due to a large number of block owners in this multidimensional and extremely distributed network. This very nature of the blockchain concept opens truly unlimited opportunities to use it in various sectors of the economy (Alves et al, 2022; Demirel et al, 2022; Heidari et al, 2023; Pennino et al, 2022). Currently being actively promoted in financial and crypto‐security areas, mostly in information and communication technologies such as electronic commerce and cryptographic data management, blockchain‐driven platforms are tentatively being introduced in other areas of human life, too, due to its unique fundamental public values and promising potential to be immutable as an information recording system.…”

Adoption of IoT by telecommunication companies in GCC: The role of blockchain

“…The UTAUT variables of "effort expectancy" and "performance expectancy" are analogous to PEOU and PU, respectively (Venkatesh et al, 2003). There will be no need for banks or other centralized institutions to process transactions while using BC technology (Pennino et al, 2022). The present iteration of the IoT suffers from severe limitations in terms of its widespread use due to issues of data security and trust (Xu Wang et al, 2019;Mahadeo, 2009).…”

“…Thus, by integrating the IoT with BC, more trusted, accurate, and transparent transactions can be made (R. . Nevertheless, since the BC technology is still relatively new, most of the prior literature was conceptual or review of the usage of BC (Ali Syed et al, 2019;Alkhateeb et al, 2022;Dedeoglu et al, 2020;Florea et al, 2022;Mahlous & Ara, 2020;Pennino et al, 2022). This research contributes to the field by investigating the moderating effect of BC technology in preventing security and privacy breaches.…”

New Ways of Working through Emerging Technologies: A Meta-Synthesis of the Adoption of Blockchain in the Accountancy Domain

“…The applications of blockchain are relevant in a variety of industries and make it possible, at least potentially, to track assets in a business network, which can be tangible (houses, cars, money, land) or intangible (intellectual property, patents, copyrights, trademarks); indeed, virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network, reducing risks and costs for all involved [6,7]. The relationship between technology and cryptocurrencies, for example, is critical to understanding the importance of blockchain [8].…”