Blockchain in IoT: Current Trends, Challenges, and Future Roadmap

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most promising technologies in the era of information technology. IoT enables ubiquitous data collections and network communications to bring significant and indispensable convenience and intelligence both to daily life and industrial operations. However, IoT is still confronting a number of challenges and manifesting a series of issues that need to be addressed urgently. Counterfeit hardware, software faults, security issues during communication, system management difficulties, and data privacy issues are significant issues for current IoT infrastructure. Meanwhile, blockchain, as an emerging information technology, has attracted huge public interest and has shown significant promise because of its decentralization, transparency, and security. The features of blockchain seem to be an ideal match for IoT, and by applying blockchain to an IoT environment, some of the aforementioned weaknesses can be addressed. This paper’s purpose is to introduce the use of blockchain in IoT applications. We present various challenges facing an IoT system and summarize the benefits of adopting blockchain into IoT infrastructure. We primarily focus on illustrating the blockchain applications in IoT with refined capabilities and enhanced security. To shed light on blockchain in IoT research, we also discuss limitations and future directions.