summary

IoT devices collect and push data, and blockchains verify and codify it. Many of the use cases we’ve discussed so far involve smart contracts making decisions based on parameters, such as for Aigang’s smart device claim distributions, and the data collection mechanisms are often IoT devices. The biggest benefits blockchains bring to IoT are security and trust. Blockchains improve IoT security and trust by forcing the IoT network to converge on truth, rather than have a single, potentially compromised database providing false information for critical situations. A lot of current IoT systems have a single point of failure, which, when under attack, can result in catastrophic system failures like the Mirai Botnet attack in 2016. Groups such as the Trusted IoT Alliance aim to tackle these problems by using blockchain to set standards for what a ‘good’ IoT node looks like and quarantine nodes that don’t measure up, while distributing the collected information from those devices to multiple sources. Next we will talk about blockchain in supply chain, which leverages IoT as well.