Author's personal copy

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-020-03059-5

Towards building a blockchain framework for IoT

Deepa Pavithran1 · Khaled Shaalan2 · Jamal N. Al-Karaki1,3 · Amjad Gawanmeh4

Received: 4 September 2019 / Revised: 7 December 2019 / Accepted: 27 January 2020

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
Blockchain is a very promising technology that spans many use cases other than cryptocurrencies. For example, its
implementation in the Internet of Things (IoT) based networks is still unclear and demands further research. This is mainly
due to the limited constraints of IoT devices and the ledger-based design of blockchain protocol. IoT may offer many
benefits if blockchain features can be balanced to fit it. As such, many current problems in IoT can be resolved. However,
implementing blockchain for IoT may still impose a variety of challenges. In this paper, we provide a recent literature
review analysis on blockchain in IoT. In particular, we identify five key components along with their design considerations
and challenges that should be considered while creating blockchain architecture for IoT. We also define gaps that hinder
creating a secure blockchain framework for IoT. We simulated two different types of blockchain implementation and
identified that device to device architecture has comparatively better throughput than gateway based implementations.

Keywords Blockchain · Blockchain technology · Internet of Things · Sensors

1 Introduction including Internet-of-Things (IoT), Internet-of-Everything

(IoE), Internet-of Vehicles (IoV), Internet-of-Medical-
Information and communication technology is growing at a Things (IoMT), Internet-of-Battlefield-Things (IoBT), and
rapid pace. Advancement in semiconductor devices and so on [4]. These devices usually have sensors that can
communication technologies allows a multitude of devices detect data from the physical environment. The detected
to communicate through the internet. These devices enable data is then stored into centralized cloud storage for anal-
machine to machine and machine to human communica- ysis and processing by various applications. The data
tion. Such a trend can be referred to by many terms, residing in the centralized cloud is vulnerable to various
forms of attack.
Blockchain is essentially a decentralized platform where
& Deepa Pavithran a copy of each transaction is kept by all parties [44]. The
deepa.pavithran@adpoly.ac.ae transactions are transparent and any modifications in them
Khaled Shaalan can be easily detected. Consider the example of a smart
khaled.shaalan@buid.ac.ae city where parking spaces are shown to users in real-time.
Jamal N. Al-Karaki Once sensors detect a free parking space, they update the
jamal.alkaraki@adpoly.ac.ae centralized database. It is possible for a system adminis-
Amjad Gawanmeh trator who manages this database to reserve a parking space
amjad.gawanmeh@ud.ac.ae for himself without showing this slot to others. In this case,
1
Abu Dhabi Polytechnic, P.O. Box 111499, Abu Dhabi, the integrity of the data from the sensor is compromised.
United Arab Emirates The purpose of a blockchain network of interconnected
2
The British University in Dubai, PO BOX 345015, Dubai, devices is to eliminate the use of a third party and, hence,
United Arab Emirates ensure that the real-time data provided by the sensor can
3
Computer Eng. Department, The Hashemite University, reach every node in the network without any modification.
Zarqa, Jordan In addition, blockchain allows IoT devices to communicate
4
College of Engineering and IT, University of Dubai, Dubai, among themselves and make decisions automatically.
United Arab Emirates

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Decentralizing the IoT network has various advantages, Therefore energy efficiency is one of the relevant issues
including reduced costs associated with maintaining a that should be addressed when blockchain and IoT are
central database for IoT transactions, as well as improved integrated.
security and privacy, which eliminates the need for a third Current approaches in IoT implementations are largely
party. However, it remains unclear as to how these features centralized, which raises several security concerns like
can be implemented in IoT. This is mainly due to the single point of failure, trust and privacy. In addition, it
limitations of IoT devices in terms of computational limits their scalability and subsequently alarmed the need
capacity, power and storage. For this reason, the block- for a decentralized trust mechanism in IoT. Blockchain can
chain protocol designed for cryptocurrencies cannot be provide trust through cryptographic techniques without the
used for IoT applications. Various IoT applications that can need for a central authority. Recently several blockchain
benefit from blockchain are shown in Fig. 1. This includes based applications for IoT have gained attention due to its
supply chain management, health care, smart city, home potential for improving security and privacy. A recent
equipment automation, energy management and asset study by Juniper research [32] predicts that a combination
tracking. of IoT and blockchain on food industry can save billion
In traditional supply-chain management, there is no dollars by reducing the retailers’ cost, simplifying regula-
traceability and accountability. The price of goods can be tory compliance and tackling fraud. Giants in the food
artificially crafted. Blockchain can help the supply-chain industry like Carrefour, Nestle and Cermaq have already
industry to keep tamperproof ledgers and can keep track of started using Hyperledger Fabric, a blockchain application
products without an intermediary [1, 7]. This ensures developed by IBM [9, 11, 45].
greater transparency and reduces corruption in the supply The contributions of this paper are multifold as follows:
chain industry. In healthcare, the combination of IoT and
blockchain help to easily collect patient data, monitor in ● A recent literature review analysis for state of the art on
real-time, and store data securely [54]. Home equipment blockchain technology applications in IoT was
and IoT in smart cities can be automated using blockchain, conducted.
enabling device to device communication between equip- ● The most important components that should be consid-
ment. Energy sectors are moving to implement blockchain ered while creating a blockchain of IoT devices were
because of its ability to lower cost and reduce harmful identified and explained. This includes identifying the
environmental impacts [16]. Blockchain can help asset type of IoT devices, the usecases and applications that
tracking by providing transparent, secure and account- will be implemented, the design of storage and how
able data collected from IoT devices attached to assets. data should be utilized, the security considerations and
the required parameters for blockchain.
● The integration requirements of blockchain and IoT
were identified and utilized.
● Recommendations on how to enable IoT devices for
better integration with blockchain technology are
introduced.
● An evaluation of the generic blockchain framework for
applications in IoT is provided.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: In Sect. 2,
we review the current context of IoT and how blockchain
can be related to IoT. In Sect. 3, we provide the related
work. In Sect. 4, we briefly describe the key components to
be considered while creating architecture for IoT. In Sect.
5, we compare existing architectures, Sect. 6 provides
implementation and performance evaluation and conclu-
sion is provided in Sect. 7.

Fig. 1 Applications of blockchain for IoT

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2 Background on Blockchain and Internet ● Wearables Wearable IoT devices are mainly used for
of Things health monitoring, fitness and entertainment. These
devices are small in size and include features that serve
2.1 Background on Internet of Things purposes such as activity tracking, monitoring sleeping
pattern and heart rate tracking.
In the recent years, we have seen a steady advancement in ● Smart Cities A smart city is equipped with devices that
the wireless sensor networks, communication and infor- can send and receive data or signals through the
mation technology. The devices are reducing in size, con- internet. For example, each street light can gather and
sumes less energy and reduced hardware cost. This enabled send information. Parking slots can be shown to the user
them to be integrated into everyday objects [41]. As cited in real-time and can find charging stations for electric
in [61] the term ‘Internet of Things’ came into attention in vehicles. The waste bin will be triggered when it is full.
September 2003 when Auto-ID Centre launched its vision Watering system monitoring will be automatic. Sensors
of a supply chain management that can be automatically will detect leaks and are triggered when necessary. It
tracked. This trend has created a vast number of tiny can plan its preventive maintenance activities and can
devices that are connected to the internet to serve specific monitor security activities [27].
functionalities. Such types of devices are collectively
● Industrial equipment IoT devices play a major role in
called the Internet of Things. It is considered as a global
network infrastructure where numerous devices are con- many industries today. This includes automatic manag-
nected to each other through the internet [17]. They are ing of workers through surveillance and an alarming
rapidly growing and have a high impact on everyday life. system to temperature sensors in the office buildings.
These devices can be referred to as smart objects that have Some of the industries that have adopted IoT include
the ability to interact and communicate with each other, agriculture, food processing, environmental monitoring
within themselves, with an end-user, or with an intercon- and health care [17].
nected object [2]. These objects have minimal communi-
cation and computational facilities. They consist of 2.3 Architecture of Internet of Things
sensors, actuators, mobile devices, and RFID tags. When
the number of devices connected to the internet increased, The architecture of IoT varies within devices due to the
the problem of addressing these devices with a unique heterogeneity of the devices. These devices are manufac-
address was a challenge. Identifying these devices with a tured by various companies with different specifications.
unique address was made possible by the IPV6 remarkable The basic architecture of IoT is shown in Fig. 2. This
decision to increase the address space. This helped in architecture consists of sensing/perception layer, network-
creating a fully functional IoT. The huge address space ing layer, middleware layer, application layer and business
provided by the IPV6 can provide unique addresses to layer [33]. The perception layer consists of the physical
billions of devices [23]. object or the sensor devices. These objects sense data from
the physical layer and communicate to the middleware
2.2 Key applications of Internet of Things layer through the network layer. These objects can be 2D-
Barcode, RFID, or infrared sensors. The information
According to a survey by GSMA [25], the top trending IoT coming from barcode scan events, RFID-based locations,
applications of users’ choice are smart appliances, smart
energy meters, wearable devices, connected cars and smart
health devices. These devices are mainly used in environ-
mental monitoring, surveillance, smart cities, smart homes
and industrial equipment [42]. Some of these applications
are briefly described below.

● Smart Homes A smart home consists of various devices

at home connected to a network that can be controlled
by the owner. This provides improved security and
manages home appliances and energy efficiently. A
few examples of such energy-saving products for the
smart home could be smart bulbs, air conditioners,
refrigerators, washing machines and air pollution sen-
sors [26]. Fig. 2 Architecture of IoT

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or data received from the sensors are passed through the Some of the industries that can benefit from blockchain are
network layer. The network layer uses ZigBee, Bluetooth, finance, cross-border transactions, Insurance, Government,
3G, and WIFI as the transmission medium to pass these Supply chain management, Healthcare and Internet of
data to the middleware layer. Things.
The middleware layer use database to store the data Bitcoin [44] launched in 2008 was the first decentralized
collected by the sensor. These data will be passed to a digital currency that is built on the blockchain technology.
centralized database for further processing. The application The value of the currency is created and stored in trans-
layer collects the data from the middleware layer and actions. What differentiates Bitcoin from traditional cur-
integrates it with smart apps. The business layer is rencies and payment card systems is that Bitcoin is a data
responsible for the overall management of the IoT system structure that is replicated in many different nodes that are
and services. It builds business models, flowcharts and part of the network. There is no central authority or central
graphs based on the data received from the application server that stores the user’s asset value making it difficult
layer. for cyber attackers to target a single machine. Bitcoin
allows only values to be exchanged. Transactions are
2.4 Challenges in Internet of Things hashed and added to the block. Identity of the customer is
verified through a public–private key pair where a cus-
The recent growth in IoT devices has imposed many tomer can have more than one public–private key pairs.
challenges in the world of electronics and communications. Each user maintains public–private key pair where
Some of the key challenges in IoT are security and privacy, the public key is shared with other agents whereas the
interoperability of IoT and identity management. Due to private key is maintained as private in the wallet. To make
the limited computational power of IoT, it is inefficient to a transaction, the sender uses the public key of the receiver
use some of the conventional public-key cryptosystems. and digitally signs the transaction using senders private key
Hence, IoT requires lightweight cryptography [3]. The data to provide authentication.
from the sensor devices are transmitted through the net-
work layer, which is vulnerable to many types of attacks. 2.6 How blockchain works?
Manufacturers create devices using their own tech-
nologies and standards. Hence, standardizing these devices Blockchain records the transactions in units of block. Each
to work and collaborate with other devices is a key block contains the hash of the previous block, hash of the
challenge. current block, timestamp, other information and transac-
As far as naming and identity management are con- tions for that block. When a sender node creates a trans-
cerned, every IoT device requires a unique identity. As action, it distributes it to all other nodes in the network.
organizations rush to launch new IoT initiatives, they are The receiving nodes validate this transaction and perform
less concerned about what level of access do these devices proof of work. The node that succeeds the proof of work
have on sensitive and non-sensitive data. Hence dynami- will broadcast it to all other nodes and add the block to the
cally assigning identities for the IoT device is a challenge chain [44]. The transaction includes the public key of the
[33]. receiver and is signed by the sender. Hence every other
node can validate the authenticity of the transaction. Each
2.5 Background on blockchain block contains a hash of the previous block which means
every block is linked to each other as shown in Fig. 3 [44]
Blockchain is essentially a distributed database where
assets can be stored and exchanged through a decentralized
network of computers while still providing security and
anonymity. Even though the asset is distributed, only the
owner who has the private key can make transactions on
this asset. The other computers in the network act as val-
idators for the transaction. It securely records transactions
into a public ledger among nodes without the need for a
trusted third party. In the centralized cloud approach when
an asset is owned, it is either stored in the custody of the
owner or with a trusted intermediary or a centralized
authority like a bank.
Some of the popular applications that use blockchain are
smart contracts, distributed cloud and digital assets [49]. Fig. 3 Bitcoin transactions

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making it difficult for an attacker to modify the transactions ● Trust A trusted third party is used in centralized
or blocks. architecture of IoT, whereas in blockchain, trust is
provided automatically using cryptographic protocols.
2.7 How blockchain can address IoT challenges? ● Security and Privacy Due to centralized architecture of
IoT, information is likely to be manipulated whereas in
IoT devices in the cloud architecture are connected through
blockchain, devices are interlinked and hashed. Hence,
a cloud server. It processes and store the data sent and
manipulation of data on one device cannot be propa-
received by the devices. However, devices connected to the
gated to other devices in the blockchain.
cloud are vulnerable to various attacks. Each block of IoT
architecture could act as a bottleneck or single point of
failure [57]. The cloud model is susceptible to manipula- 2.8 Attacks on blockchain
tion. For Example: In the city of Flint, Michigan, smart
water meters were used to measure the quality of water. Although several attacks are documented for blockchain
The authorities were insisting on the fact that water in the most of them are not relevant in practice [8]. Some of the
city is safe to drink whereas CNN article asserted that attacks available in the literature are:
officials might have altered sample data to lower the lead
level in water [37]. It reported that two of the collected ● Malwares The distributed nature of blockchain archi-
samples were discarded by the officials. Such types of tecture introduces the spreading of malwares. With the
malpractice can be avoided by implementing blockchain development of newer protocols and the ability to store
for IoT. This is because the data generated by the sensors and compute data, it would be possible to store
could not be modified. malicious data within the blockchain [12]. Malware
In blockchain, devices rely on smart contract to effects on the devices in blockchain will result in its
exchange messages. Authentication is done by digitally propagation to other nodes in the blockchain. This can
signing the message with the private key of the owner result in crashing of the nodes.
which ensures that the message originated from the owner ● Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS) The
itself. This eliminates the possibility of man-in-the-middle, study conducted by Vasek et al. [62] found that 7.4%
replay and other types of attacks [57]. Some of the bitcoin-related services have experienced DDOS. In
advantages of using blockchain for IoT are: these, eWallets, financial services, mining pools are
more likely to be attacked. Just like, in the case of
● Reduced cost According to Gartner [24] 8.4 billion IoT a traditional wallet, the bitcoin wallet also needs to be
devices was used in 2017 which is 31% increase when protected. It is recommended to use two-factor authen-
compared with 2016. This radically increased the tication to protect the bitcoin wallet. For additional
storage and network capacity required by these devices. layer of security, the wallet should be encrypted and
Using blockchain, devices can communicate with each backup to be taken.
other and can execute actions automatically. Hence
● Phishing attacks on bitcoin wallets Several phishing
cloud storage and administrative staff for maintaining
attacks on bitcoin wallets and blockchain.info site were
cloud storage will not be required [56].
reported in 2018 [13]. Hackers created a site similar to
● Single Point of failure Each entity in the IoT architec- blockchain.info and tried to steal the wallet information.
ture is independent in its functions. Hence malfunc- In another case, hackers impersonated legitimate recip-
tioning of any device can create a single point of failure. ients and persuaded the investors to send bitcoins to
In a blockchain, all the devices are connected to each their address. Once the bitcoin was sent, it could not be
other and all transactions are copied to every node in recovered.
the blockchain; hence, malfunctioning of a single
● Majority Attacks This type of attack is also known as
device does not affect the operations of other devices.
the 51% attack. Group of miners can decide which
● Resistant to Malicious Attack IoT devices are vulner- transactions should be approved or not if they can
able to many types of attacks due to its centralized control the majority of the network mining power. This
architecture. Some examples of attacks are distributed would allow them to reject other transactions or double-
denial of service, deception attack, and data theft. These spend their own transactions. If the blockchain network
can be avoided with the blockchain architecture for IoT is free and open, this could be made possible especially
whereas blockchain is vulnerable to some other types of with the rise of mining pools. However, the attack
attacks as described in Section 2.8. doesn’t give full control over the bitcoin network.
Similarly, in a private or permissioned blockchain,

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proof-of-work will be implemented under the regula- 4 Key components in creating blockchain
tor’s direction; therefore regulator will have authority to for IoT
control the network [12].
● Sybil Attack Sybil attack [21] is controlling a peer to In this section, we provide the key components that should
peer network using multiple identities. A single entity be considered while creating blockchain for IoT.
creates multiple fake identities to control the network. If
an attacker is possible to control the majority of mining 4.1 Identify the type of IoT device
nodes in the blockchain, then he can create a fake
transaction and add it to the blockchain. The first step is to identify the type of IoT devices. This is
provided in Fig. 4. Some devices have only the sensor
● Eclipse attack [28] It is a targeted attack on the
functionalities, with computations only to share the sensor
distributed system, where a malicious attacker isolates a
data to a database. Whereas other devices will have sensor
specific node and cut off all its inbound/outbound
functionalities along with computation capabilities to
connections with its peers. So attackers try to gain 51%
encrypt or process data. In the first case, a blockchain of
of the mining power by trying to isolate some of the
edge nodes or gateways based architecture would be ideal,
mining nodes.
whereas, in the latter case, a device-only architecture could
also be used. A full node can carry the full copy of
the blockchain and can perform the computation required
3 Related work in blockchain, whereas a light node does not hold the
blockchain data instead, refer to a full node.
The majority of the work on IoT blockchain is that pro- As IoT devices are different in their design and archi-
poses architecture, consensus and security. We compared tecture, interoperability within these devices under a
some of the existing architecture under Sect. 5. Perfor- common blockchain will be a challenging issue. Bringing
mance and scalability are the main problems in IoT different types of devices under the same blockchain can be
blockchain [38]. This is due to the large volume of data a trivial task. This issue can be addressed by standardizing
generated by the devices. Several papers identified poten- the IoT manufacturing and blockchain implementation.
tial challenges and technologies in IoT blockchain [18, 66]. Devices owned by different entities or owners will need
Authors in [18] identified key challenges and potential standardized policies on the data that could be accessed and
applications for IoT blockchain. They provided a detailed stored. The blockchain should be linked with the regulatory
description of various challenges, types of blockchain and authorities to adopt consistent regulations. To provide
consensus used in blockchain. A detailed description of efficiency, certain security and privacy controls should be
variety of Byzantines Fault Tolerance (BFT) techniques in place like such as the risk management process. In
with its negative and positive aspects is summarized in the addition, there should be rules to govern the interactions
paper. A variety of literature use variant of Byzantines fault between participants.
Tolerance consensus for IoT blockchain [55]. Proof of
Work based consensus is not widely used in IoT block- 4.2 Identify the type of application
chain due to the resource-constrained nature of IoT devi-
ces. Various use-cases of blockchain beyond While building applications based on blockchain, we need
cryptocurrencies are provided in [14]. They also provide a to systematically consider the features and configurations
detailed list of the type of data that are stored in blockchain that are required and assess the impact and quality of these
and the implementation differences in IoT blockchain and
cryptocurrencies. A detailed description of various block-
chain based consensus methods, platforms and implemen-
tations for IoT are surveyed in [51]. In [47] authors provide
a decision framework to choose when to use blockchain
and what platform to choose while creating blockchain for
IoT.

Fig. 4 Identify the IoT device type

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with IoT. Requirements to identify the application types be IoT sensor data, device identity, public key, or reference
are provided in Fig. 5 to data stored in cloud.
Based on the type of implementation, blockchain can be Each node in the blockchain maintains a distributed
classified into permissioned, permissionless or Hybrid ledger, which is a database that requires storage space. To
blockchain [63]. In the case of permissionless blockchain, add a new device into the block, the device should
anyone can join the network and can participate in con- download all the transactions from the first block. Hence in
sensus procedure. It has open read/write access to the such architectures, IoT devices should have enough storage
database. Bitcoin is an example of a permissionless capacity to maintain a copy of the transactions. IoT sensors
blockchain. Whereas in the case of permissioned block- generate a vast amount of data. Replicating this data to
chain, only selected participants can be part of consensus many different nodes require high storage capacity for the
procedure. IBM’s Hyperledger blockchain is an example of nodes and high-speed data transfer facilities. One of the
a permissioned blockchain. Hybrid blockchain is a com- major challenges would be on how to avoid the large
bination of permissioned and permissionless blockchain. A amount of unwanted data generated by sensors without
hybrid blockchain will have a public facing network for the being replicated to other nodes. AI techniques should be
customers and an internal private blockchain network. In a used to parse the raw data and remove unwanted data.
permissionless network, all the full nodes will be running Blockchain, on the other hand, usually processes a limited
all the applications. In the case of IoT this will affect the number of transactions per second; therefore, this may
performance of the IoT device due to the resource-con- create a gap between the data being generated and the
strained nature of these devices. In permissioned block- capability of processing the data.
chain, every node will only need to perform the Every transaction in the blockchain is signed using the
computations required for a given application. A compar- private key, which should be kept securely. One of the
ison of permissioned and permissionless blockchain is main challenges in designing blockchain for IoT would be
provided in Table 1. finding a solution on how to store the private keys securely
Depending on the type of application, IoT devices can within IoT. Most of the IoT devices reside in public places
be classified into consumer, enterprise or industrial IoT. and hence it could be compromised easily. In bitcoin pri-
Consumer IoT is solutions made for individual non-com- vate keys are stored securely in the owner’s bitcoin wallet.
mercial usage. IoT devices in a smart home are a con- If the owner loses his bitcoin wallet, he/she will lose all the
sumer-based IoT. Solutions created for large commercial bitcoins associated with that wallet. Majority of the attack
buildings or in an enterprise are classified under enterprise on bitcoin is due to stolen wallet. Hence private keys
IoT. Examples are IoT used in supplychain industry, IoT in within the IoT devices should be stored securely. Hardware
street light, etc. Industrial IoT is devices used in the factory embedded secure keys should be used in such a case.
or farm. An example is devices to monitor fuel levels,
and trigger when fuel is empty. A selection of the block- 4.4 Identify security requirements
chain use-cases for IoT available in the literature is pro-
vided in Table 2. Blockchain is capable of solving the security challenges in
IoT. The traditional bitcoin protocol provides integrity,
4.3 Identify data and storage requirements authentication and pseudo-anonymity. However, in
the case of IoT, the confidentiality of the data generated by
Identifying what data should be stored in the blockchain is sensors should be protected depending on the sensitivity of
a significant component while designing blockchain. Fig- data. Highly sensitive data generated by IoT devices need
ure 6 provides an overview of this requirement. These can to be protected from unauthorized people. The distributed
nature of blockchain stores all transactions in all the par-
ticipating nodes. Controlling access to the data within
devices should also be considered.
Figure 7 identifies the security requirement while cre-
ating IoT blockchain. Even though blockchain technology
reduces the potential risks in traditional centralized archi-
tecture, still security breaches are unavoidable. If a user’s
private key is compromised, the attacker can perform
transactions on the user’s behalf. Security is provided in
blockchain through asymmetric cryptography which
requires substantial computational efforts to break the
Fig. 5 Identify the type of applications cipher. This is because classical computers encode

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Table 1 Permissioned and permissionless blockchain

Permissionless Permissioned

No restriction on who can perform transactions Restriction on who can perform transactions
No restrictions on adding as a node Restrictions on adding as a node
No restriction to participate in consensus mechanism Restriction to participate in consensus mechanism
Low performance when compared with permissioned High scalability and faster
Less cost effective Cost effective
More chance of spreading malwares Security depends on the access control system implemented
Fully decentralized Not fully decentralized

Table 2 Usecases of Blockchain

Usecases example References
for IoT
Home automation [19, 20]
Blockchain based sharing services towards smart cities [56]
Blockchain ready: manufacturing supply chain using distributed ledger [1]
Pharma supply chain [6]
Supply chain traceability system for food safety [58, 59]
Access control framework [46]
Logistics and supply chain [1, 35]
Energy management [30]
Data storage management [68]
Trade of items and data [65, 67]
E-business model for smart property management [67]
Power generation and distribution [39]
Modum framework for supply chain [43]

information as bits. Quantum computing takes a new

approach in processing information which will be much
faster than the classical approach. If the information can be
processed much faster, then the computation efforts to
break the asymmetric cryptography will be easy. Hence
quantum resistant cryptography for blockchain [34] will be
required in future.
Another issue related to security is the reliability of the
IoT data. Since blockchain can only ensure the reliability
of data stored within the chain, however, if this data is
Fig. 6 Identify data and storage requirements
already malicious from IoT source, then it will remain as is
within the blockchain. Finally, several IoT devices rely on
existing complex and centralized security protocols that are
based on PKI, such as TLS and DTLS, therefore, inte-
grating these devices with decentralized blockchain
enabled systems may raise several concerns about
interoperability.

4.5 Identify blockchain parameters

It is trivial to identify the participating IoT and trusted

nodes that verify the transaction.
Fig. 7 Identify security requirement

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A central authority or a group of stakeholders can decide to Byzantine Generals Problem is PBFT (Practical
on the nodes that will be added to the network. Such type Byzantine Fault tolerance) [10]. Permissioned blockchain
of design will be like a hybrid blockchain that uses the platforms mainly use PBFT. In PBFT, Each party main-
basic features of blockchain and mining will be done by tains an internal state. When a transaction is received, each
one or more trusted parties. A variety of blockchain party uses its internal state and run computations to vali-
parameters are provided in Fig. 8. Identifying the optimal date a transaction. This computation will lead to the party’s
consensus and optimal platform for implementation is an decision about the transaction. This will be shared with all
important task. other nodes in the blockchain. The final decision is based
on the total decision of all parties. When enough responses
4.5.1 Consensus are reached, a transaction is verified to be a valid
transaction.
Consensus in the literal terms means agreement. Seibold
and Samman [53] define a consensus mechanism as a 4.5.2 Blockchain platforms for IoT
method of authenticating or validating a value or transac-
tion on a Blockchain or a distributed ledger without the ● IOTA [31] is a permissionless distributed ledger
need to trust or rely on a central authority. In a distributed that uses the ‘Tangle’ consensus. It is based on Directed
or decentralized network, for nodes to reach a common Acyclic Graph (DAG), where the vertices in the DAG
agreement, consensus algorithms are used. Bitcoin uses represent transactions, and edges represent approvals.
proof of work based consensus, which consumes high Tangle uses lightweight consensus specifically designed
energy. Such kind of consensus cannot be used for IoT. for IoT. It does not use block to store data; instead each
Blockchain platforms use a range of consensus model transaction is a unique block. To create a transaction,
which are built on Byzantines Fault tolerance. nodes initially sign the transaction and randomly choose
In a decentralized environment where there is no central two previous transactions to approve. When a node
authority to keep the ledger, this process is done through issues a new transaction, it must approve two previous
consensus mechanisms that allow secure updating of a nodes. The newly created node is then called ‘tip’. This
distributed shared state. Cryptocurrencies powered by node will remain as ‘tip’ until a newly created node
blockchain uses a decentralized environment, where each approves it. As most of the other protocols use cryp-
ledger is distributed among all nodes in the network. The tographic algorithms that will be obsolete with quantum
process of validating the transactions and adding them to computing, IOTA uses quantum-resistant cryptography,
the ledger is done by nodes in the network. But how do we curl-p’ for hashing and Winternitz signature for
trust these nodes? What if some validating nodes are authentication. It is fast and scalable. However, the
malicious? They may be trying to perform double spending main drawback is that there is no rule in Tangle on how
or trying to discard some transactions. Such types of to choose the two nodes for approval. All the tokens are
problems can be considered as Byzantine Generals Prob- generated in the genesis transaction and hence there is
lem. A byzantine node can mislead other nodes involved in no mining for generating tokens. All the nodes con-
the consensus mechanism. Hence the consensus mecha- tribute to providing network security by approving two
nism should be able to operate correctly and reach con- other transactions. For a node to issue a valid transac-
sensus even in the presence of byzantine nodes. A solution tion, the node must solve a cryptographic puzzle similar
to bitcoin. This is achieved by finding a nonce such that
the hash of that nonce concatenated with some data
from the approved transaction has a particular form
[48].
● Hyperledger Fabric [29] is an open-source blockchain
platform developed by IBM. This is the most widely
used blockchain platform which is used across different
industries and use-cases. It is used in several prototypes,
proof of concepts, and in production distributed ledger
system. Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned block-
chain with pluggable consensus. It is one of the projects
of Hyperledger which is under the Linux Foundation. It
is the first blockchain system that allows the execution
Fig. 8 Identify blockchain parameters
of distributed applications written in standard

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programming. While the traditional blockchain uses 5 Comparison of existing architecture

order-execute-validate architecture, Hyperledger Fabric for IoT blockchain
uses execute- order-validate architecture. It uses an
endorsement policy that is evaluated in the validation In this section, we compare various architectures available
phase. Endorsement policy is managed by designated in the literature. Figure 9 shows a generic blockchain for
administrators and act as a static library for transaction IoT architecture with support for several types of IoT
validation. Examples of endorsement policies are devices as well as different infrastructures. The integration
“Three out of five” or “(A⋁B) ⋀ C.” Custom endorse- of IoT devices involve cloud systems, edge computing,
ment policies can also be written. One of the disad- gateways, and different types of IoT devices that range
vantages is that a central authority is managing the from simple sensors that can only communicate through
endorsement policy and will be implementing it in the nearby gateways to devices with computational and pro-
network forcing all others to accept it. This is due to the cessing capabilities.
fact that the BFT used in Hyperledger Fabric assumes Table 4 shows a comparison of various architectures
certain parties of the network to be trustworthy. Within available in literature based on the type of storage used,
an organization, it assumes that all peers to be consensus and security. IOTchain [5] is a three-tier
trustworthy. This reduces transaction processing, as blockchain-based IoT security architecture. The three lay-
not all nodes need to execute the transaction. Hyper- ers are authentication layer (Certification layer), block-
ledger Fabric allows writing smart contracts in a chain layer and application layer. It is designed to achieve
general-purpose language. The framework cannot be identity, authentication, access control, privacy protection,
used for large scale applications similar to public lightweight, fault tolerance, DOS attack resilience and
blockchain due to the network overhead caused when storage integrity. Hardware security model (HSM) is used
the number of nodes is increased [51]. to generate, store and handle key pairs and hashes are
● Ethereum [22] is a project that can create a generalized stored as Merkle tree. Any lightweight consensus can be
technology on which all transaction-based state used with IoTchain, it can be Practical Byzantine Fault-
machine concepts can be built. Ethereum enables Tolerance Algorithm (PBFT) or Proof of stake (PoS). Ini-
developers to build and deploy centralized applications. tially, nodes register through the certification layer, which
Thousands of different applications can be created provides the key pair after a valid authentication step. The
using the Ethereum platform. Its core innovation, the keys are then added to the HSM to prevent tampering the
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), helps in creating key.
blockchain applications easier. Developers do not have Hybrid IoT uses both Proof of work and BFT. Proof of
to start coding from scratch, instead, they can use the work based sub blockchain is created, which are then
Ethereum platform and can create their transaction interconnected using BFT [50]. They use separate cen-
formats, rules and state transition functions [64]. A tralized storage for each sub blockchain.
comparison of these platforms is provided in Table 3. Blockchain based framework for edge and fog com-
puting is proposed in [60]. Fog computing brings the

Table 3 Comparison of Ethereum, Hyperledger fabric and IOTA

Characteristics Ethereum Hyperledger fabric IOTA

Description of platform Permissioned/permissionless Permissioned Permissionless

Type Open source Open source Not fully open source
Governance Ethereum developers IBM IOTA foundation
Consensus Customizable Pluggable consensus Tangle
Smart contract Yes Yes No
Data confidentiality No Yes No
Advantages Allow public and private blockchains Allow writing smart contract in Use quantum resistant cryptography
a general purpose language
Drawbacks Does not allow confidential transaction Framework cannot be used for There is no rule in Tangle on how to
large scale applications choose the two nodes for approval

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Fig. 9 A Generic blockchain for IoT architecture

Table 4 Comparison of architectures for IoT Blockchain

Name Architecture type Consensus Storage used Encryption References
used layer

IoT chain Three layer architecture Any Distributed storage No [5]

lightweight
consensus
Hybrid IoT Proof of work based sub blockchain Proof of work A transaction pool for each No [50]
interconnected with BFT and BFT sub blockchain
Fogbus Platform independent interface Proof of work Distributed repository nodes Yes [60]
Scalable cost efficient and later backup to cloud
infrastructure
Proxy re-encryption Without the involvement of trusted Ethereum Data stored in cloud and Yes [40]
scheme third party, IoT data is encrypted and Smart Address of the data stored in
stored in cloud contract blockchain
Multichain and arduino Two layers: FOG and IoT Round robin Data processed in FOG NO [52]

network and cloud computing resources closer to the edge. storage. This data will be encrypted and stored in the cloud.
Hence computations can be performed near to the IoT The sensor owner activates the sensor and registers them
devices instead of sending it to the cloud datacenter [36]. on the blockchain. Blockchain executes smart contracts on
FogBus can integrate different IoT systems into fog and the sensor transactions and provides the required key to the
cloud infrastructure. It functions as a platform-as-a-Service sensor to encrypt the data. According to the architecture,
model where developers can build different types of IoT the data are not stored in the blockchain, whereas it is
applications, customize the services and manage resources. stored encrypted in a central cloud which is a centralized
A case study of health monitoring is provided in the paper. architecture and also a single point of failure. In [52] a
It also provides authentication and encryption techniques to blockchain system is implemented using multiple nodes,
protect the data. including an Arduino in-order to illustrate an IoT–block-
A novel blockchain based scheme with a proxy re-en- chain application.
cryption scheme to ensure confidentiality is proposed in
[40]. The architecture includes IoT devices, miners, cloud
server and data requester connected through the internet.
The IoT sensors capture and transmit the data to cloud

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6 Implementation and performance 7 Conclusions

evaluation
IoT devices participating in blockchain technologies enable
To compare the performance of IoT-device-only type of a lot of challenging applications, including supply chain
architecture and Gateway-based architecture, we conducted management, health care, weather predictions, and food
simulation using the Cooja simulator for the Contiki safety. This could be a clear replacement for the untrusted
operating system [15]. We used Z1 motes generated at cloud technology providing security and privacy for the
random locations. We simulated a network of 5, 10, 20 and user’s data. While creating an architecture for IoT, we
40 nodes. The nodes use IPV6 over low power wireless identified that five components should be considered. They
personal, regional networks (6LoWPAN) to connect. In are IoT device types, types of applications, blockchain
this simulation, we have not considered the computation types and nodes, data and storage, and security.
and storage procedures. We considered only the commu- Blockchain based IoT requires energy-efficient design
nication process. We are assuming 72 bytes for elliptic along with security and the ability to scale. IoT devices
curve signature size and 32 bytes for SHA-256 hash should be equipped with scalable storage solutions and
functions and an average transaction size of 77 bytes. We computational power required to hash the transactions and
fixed the transaction size and varied the number of nodes. verify the digital signatures. Implementation should
We compared the average time of communication address the challenges of both IoT and blockchain. We
between nodes in the blockchain on an IoT-device-only compared the most widely used platforms for IoT block-
architecture and gateway architecture. Based on the result chain, which are Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and IOTA.
from throughout, a graph was plotted. The X-axis in the We identified that Hyperledger Fabric is the most preferred
graph shows the number of nodes and Y-axis shows the platform due to its pluggable consensus and provides
number of transactions. We collected the number of confidentiality to the data, which is most important in
transactions in a period of 5 s and 10 s. From the result, we the case of IoT due to the sensitive nature of the data. We
identified that the throughput is low while using gateways, identified that (PBFT) is the most widely used consensus
as shown in Fig. 10 and 11. for IoT blockchain due to the minimal requirement of
computation than other consensus.
We compared the architectures and frameworks for IoT
Blockchain. Designing the storage and confidentiality of
data are the crucial components that should be done care-
No: of Transactions

200
fully in IoT blockchain. Most of the architectures we
150
analyzed use centralized cloud storage, which contradicts
100 with the original objective of blockchain and can be a
t=5sec
50 single point of failure. However, some of them have used
t=10sec
0 distributed storage, which does not have any protection on
5 10 20 40 data. This is because providing confidentiality for dis-
No: of Nodes tributed storage is not an easy task. Hence we identified
that an efficient architecture for IoT blockchain is still not
Fig. 10 Average throughput for IoT-device-only type of architecture
available. Considering the vast advantages that blockchain
can provide for IoT, we believed that blockchain
would overhaul cloud computing systems. Our research
delivers insight into how changes in IoT due to blockchain
200 technology, progress and in what directions firms have to
No: of Transactions

think while changing their business model.

150

100
t=5sec
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ment (ICSSSM), pp. 1–6. IEEE (2016) Edinburgh (UoE), UK. Prof
59. Tian, F.: A supply chain traceability system for food safety based Khaled is an Associate Editor
on HACCP, blockchain & Internet of things. In: 2017 Interna- on ACM Transactions of Asian
tional Conference on Service Systems and Service Management and Low Resource Language
(ICSSSM), pp. 1–6. IEEE (2017) Information Processing (TAL-
60. Tuli, S., Mahmud, R., Tuli, S., Buyya, R.: Fogbus: a blockchain- LIP) editorial board, Associa-
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Softw (2019) (ACM). Prof Khaled has a long
61. Uckelmann, D., Harrison, M., Michahelles, F.: An architectural experience in teaching in the
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at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Over the last two dec- Karaki is the Co-Founder and Division Head of information Security
ades, Prof Khaled has been contributing to a wide range of research Engineering Technology- Abu Dhabi Polytechnic (ADPoly), Abu
topics in Arabic Natural Language Processing, including machine Dhabi, UAE since Feb 2012. Before Joining ADPoly, He served as
translation, parsing, spelling and grammatical checking, named entity the Dean of Information Technology College, at the Hashemite
recognition, and diacritization. Moreover, he has also worked on University, Zarka—Jordan. He also worked for faculty of computing,
topics in knowledge management, knowledge-based systems, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with knowledge
knowledge engineering methodology, including expert systems comes a responsibility towards the society. Dr. Al-Karaki obtained his
building tools, expert systems development, and knowledge verifi- Ph.D. from Iowa State University where he was awarded the research
cation. Nevertheless, Khaled worked on health informatics topics, excellence award on his pioneering work on wireless ad hoc net-
including context-aware knowledge modelling for decision support in works. Dr. Al-Karaki has more than 60 published refereed technical
E-Health and game-based learning. Furthermore, Prof Khaled worked articles in scholarly international journals and proceedings of inter-
in educational topics, including intelligent tutoring, item banking, national conferences. He also served on the Editorial Board of some
distance learning, and mobile learning. He has been the principal international journals and as publicity chair and technical program
investigator or co-investigator on research grants from USA, UK, and committee member of several International conferences and work-
UAE funding bodies. Prof Khaled has published over 190? referred shops. He also attended training/gained reputable professional cer-
publications and the impact of his research using GoogleScholar’s tificates that includes CISSP, OSCP, ECSA, GMOB, CHFI, RHCSA,
H-index metric is 30?. He has several research publications in his and CCNA security. Dr. Al-Karaki constantly works collaboratively
name in highly reputed journals such as Computational Linguistics, with industry, government, faculty, senior executive leadership, and
Journal of Natural Language Engineering, Journal of the American with community stakeholders to encourage scholarly pursuits,
Society for Information Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions engagement, and innovation as critical goals with sound budget
on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Expert Systems with Applica- planning. As active researcher, he developed plans to advance the
tions, Software-Practice & Experience, Journal of Information Sci- research agenda, activity and productivity; outreach and community
ence, Computer Assisted Language Learning, and European Journal engagement. He also develops strategic plan for continuous
of Scientific Research to name a few. Prof Khaled’s research work is improvement of undergraduate and graduate programs. He also
cited extensively worldwide (see his Google Scholar citation indices). developed notable experience with leadership in the development of
He has guided several Doctoral and Master Students in the area of new programs that meet international standards and success in
Arabic Natural Language Processing, healthcare, Intelligent Tutoring building teamwork. In particular, he has excellent experience with
Systems, and Knowledge Management. Prof Khaled encourages and ABET, CAA, NQA, and standards. His research work focuses on
supports his students in publishing at highly ranked journals and network security, cyber security, Penetration testing, Security audits,
conference proceedings. Prof Khaled has been actively and exten- Cloud security, threat modelling, Blockchain, IoT, Big data, and
sively supporting the local and international academic community. He e-learning. Dr. Al-Karaki is a senior member of the Institute of
is the founder and Co-Chair of The International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and member of Associ-
Arabic Computational Linguistic (ACLing). He has participated in ation of computing and machinery (ACM) among other several pro-
seminars and invited talks locally and internationally, invited to fessional organizations.
international group meetings, invited to review papers from leading
conferences and premier journals in his field, and invited for Amjad Gawanmeh is an Asso-
reviewing promotion applications to the ranks of Associate and Full ciate Professor at the College of
Professor for applicants from both British and Arab Universities. Prof Engineering and IT, University
Khaled is the Head of Programmes PhD in Computer Science, MSc in of Dubai, UAE, adjunct profes-
Informatics and MSc in IT Management, and BSc in Computer Sci- sor at Concordia University,
ence (Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering). Montreal, Canada, and a senior
IEEE member. He received the
Jamal N. Al-Karaki is an accom- M.S. and the Ph.D degrees from
plished Information security and Concordia University, Montreal,
technology expert with 20? Canada, 2003 and 2008. His
years of versatile IT experience research interests include,
and expertise in corporate sys- design and verification of med-
tems and network security icals sensors, testing and verifi-
architecture and management cation of hardware systems,
along with IT projects manage- security systems, and healthcare
ment, network and IT infras- systems, modeling and analysis of complex systems such as CPS,
tructure design and performance analysis of complex systems, reliability of as medical
implementation, curriculum system, and reliability of CPS. He has two edited books, three book
design, training program design, chapters, more than 30 peer reviewed indexed journal papers, and
and change management more than 55 indexed conference papers. He was a visiting scientist at
throughout the project life cycle Syracuse University, Concordia University, and University of Que-
in public and private sectors. In bec. He is an associate editor for IEEE Access Journal, and for
addition, Dr. Al-Karaki has a rich University career in education, Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences Journal,
training and research including serving heavily in academic leader- Springer. He acted as guest editor for several special issues. He is on
ship capacity. He has many years of experience in curricula design, the reviewer board for several journals in IEEE, Elsevier, Wiley, and
pedagogy in higher education and lead several teams at various uni- many others. He is a member of the executive committee for IPCCC
versities in implementing curricula continuous improvement and conference. He has co-chaired several conferences and chaired sev-
attain national and international accreditation. He is a consultant in eral workshops organized in key conferences including ICC, ICDCS,
the fields of information technology and security for various gov- IPCCC, Healthcom, ISNCC, CHASE, WoWMoM, ITNG, and
ernmental and commercial firms. Dr. Al-Karaki has served in several WiMob.
senior leadership positions as a Dean, Director, and Chairman. Dr. Al-

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