The Blockchain And Its Role In The Internet of Things

The ability of devices to work with each other seamlessly has been a big boon for many businesses. The data generated gives enormous insights into how business practices are impacted from logistics to human resources and beyond.

Now that the blockchain is seeing some major development advances, it is finding its way into the realm of IoT. 

The weakest link in the IoT has been security. After all, any server can be vulnerable in the hands of an experienced hacker. The strength of the blockchain is that it is incredibly secure. Many people really only know about the blockchain when it comes to Dollar to Bitcoin conversion as they think solely about it as a cryptocurrency.

How does the blockchain work within the IoT?

In this article, I will go over several of the ways that it is being adopted to address many of the concerns when it comes to cloud-based IoT technology.

Security

The weak link in the IoT is how difficult it is to spot an area where a data breach could happen. Since there are so many devices in play with data being shared among them, it can happen at any point in the chain. Another issue is who should be handling the data since it can be manipulated without it being obvious that anything changed.

These are the two biggest strengths when it comes to the blockchain. Since the blockchain is a distributed ledger that is immutable, it is secure by its very nature. Any changes to each block or hash would be seen immediately and set off alarm bells.

The reason for this is how the ledger is distributed. It doesn’t reside on a server, but rather thousands of them. Each user on the blockchain has a copy on their computer. If one of these is changed, it won’t match the same hash on the rest of the computers. To change one successfully, a hacker would need to find a way to hack into thousands of computers at the same time. 

Scalability

Security and scalability work hand in hand. The blockchain allows for much faster processing of the data between devices so it is able to grow much faster than a cloud-based server could. The way the distribution of the ledger works allows the computing to be spread out and not rely on one big server to get the job done. 

Another avenue of growth happens because of the trust in the blockchain. There is no need for many third-party applications for security which opens up the valves so to speak. Less reliance on other applications speeds up the process which allows for faster scalability.

What needs to be improved?

There is still some room for advancement when it comes to the blockchain and how it works with the IoT. For instance, working between chains at the moment is not easy. A blockchain is literally like a chain which runs in a strain line, one block after another.

Different chains can’t easily communicate with each other so there needs to be a third-party application to do this when necessary. This means that devices need to be specifically designed for the chain they work with. 

Also, Read Everything You Need to Know about Blockchain