Blockchain for IoT: The Challenges and a Way Forward

Bitcoin has revolutionized the decentralized payment system by excluding the need for a trusted third party, reducing the transaction (TX) fee and time involved in TX confirmation as compared to a conventional banking system. The underlying technology of Bitcoin is Blockchain, which was initially designed for financial TXs only. However, due to its decentralized architecture, fault tolerance and cryptographic security benefits such as user anonymity, data integrity and authentication, researchers and security analysts around the world are focusing on the Blockchain to resolve security and privacy issues of IoT. But at the same time, default limitations of Blockchain, such as latency in transaction confirmation, scalability concerning Blockchain size and network expansion, lack of IoT-centric transaction validation rules, the absence of IoT-focused consensus protocols and insecure device integration are required to be addressed before it can be used securely and efficiently in an IoT environment. Therefore, in this paper we analyze some of the existing consensus protocols used in various Blockchain-based applications, with a focus on investigating significant limitations in TX (Transaction) validation and consensus mechanism that make them inappropriate to be implemented in Blockchain-based IoT systems. We also propose a way forward to address these issues.

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