A group of researchers led by Zhongxing Ming, a visiting scholar at Princeton University, opine that IoT’s adoption would face challenges owing to the bottlenecks between a large number of devices and also the mobile nature of a majority of the devices.

Their forthcoming blockchain-based TCP/IP architecture Block cloud aims to connect and secure the IoT through the combination of blockchain and service-centric networking (SCN). It aims to act as a layer solution and therefore would have high scalability. These ideas were presented at GENESIS C.A.T., an innovation-in-blockchain technology event in Tokyo.

Combining Blockchain and SCN

The blockchain is an encrypted ledger, available publicly, that records transactions. The researchers say that while blockchain might be good for transactions, the underlying network has a lot of limitations. SCN is a new network architecture that allows applications to interact through service names instead of addresses thereby resulting in intermittent, challenging, non-host-centric connections.  

The solution that researchers propose involves making use of a combination of blockchain and SCN, which would they claim would be better than either as a standalone. Here, SCN can provide a network that can help blockchain provide trust and monetization. Through the use of a sensor in this network, an open global service market for sensor data can be realized.

The Blockcloud mechanisms can take care of pricing of sensor data and matching of services for both the user and the supplier by verifying transactions dependably and distributing services fairly. The SCN also takes care of the location of user and components, performance, and demand. The researchers also say that Blockcloud is a first-of-its-kind universal overlay that comprehensively addresses the mobility problem of IoT.