Blockchain for the Internet of Things: A systematic literature review
Open accessAbstract
In the Internet of Things (IoT) scenario, the block-chain and, in general, Peer-to-Peer approaches could play an important role in the development of decentralized and dataintensive applications running on billion of devices, preserving the privacy of the users. Our research goal is to understand whether the blockchain and Peer-to-Peer approaches can be employed to foster a decentralized and private-by-design IoT. As a first step in our research process, we conducted a Systematic Literature Review on the blockchain to gather knowledge on the current uses of this technology and to document its current degree of integrity, anonymity and adaptability. We found 18 use cases of blockchain in the literature. Four of these use cases are explicitly designed for IoT. We also found some use cases that are designed for a private-by-design data management. We also found several issues in the integrity, anonymity and adaptability. Regarding anonymity, we found that in the blockchain only pseudonymity is guaranteed. Regarding adaptability and integrity, we discovered that the integrity of the blockchain largely depends on the high difficulty of the Proof-of-Work and on the large number of honest miners, but at the same time a difficult Proof-of-Work limits the adaptability. We documented and categorized the current uses of the blockchain, and provided a few recommendations for future work to address the above-mentioned issues.
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There exist different types of blockchains depending on how users interact with them and how data are managed or accessed.
“There exist different types of blockchains depending on how users interact with them and how data are managed/accessed [18].”
From A Review on the Application of Blockchain to the Next Generation of Cybersecure Industry 4.0 Smart Factories (2019) · cites this paper as [18]
The blockchain network guarantees the pseudonymized identity of users.
“The blockchain network guarantees the pseudonymized identity of the users [53].”
From Security Aspects of Blockchain Technology Intended for Industrial Applications (2021) · cites this paper as [53]
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- Authors
- Conoscenti, M., Vetro, A., & De Martin, J. C.
- Affiliations
- Politecnico di Torino (IT)
- ORCID
- Conoscenti, Marco
- Venue
- 2016 IEEE/ACS 13th International Conference of Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2016-11
- Pages
- 1-6
- OpenAlex
- W2624953603
- Cited by
- 769
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 51 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 99 · 2021: 115 · 2020: 120 · 2019: 155 · 2018: 83 · 2017: 10
- FWCI
- 26.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA) (publishedVersion)
- PORTO@Iris (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology in Education and Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Internet of Things and AI
- Keywords
- blockchain, Internet of Things, peer-to-peer, decentralized applications, privacy, pseudonymity, data integrity, proof-of-work, blockchain use cases, data management
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