Framework for IoT ecosystems based on distributed ledger technologies and decentralized identifiers

Abstract

Blockchains are the first Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), technologies based on decentralized networks of devices which share data on a distributed ledger. They possess qualities such as resilience, reliability, and traceability of sensitive data. The low scalability and frequent inefficiency of Blockchain result in ineffective integration with Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Other DLTs such as DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graph DLTs) possess benefits comparable to those of Blockchains without presenting most of the limitations that prevent their application in the IoT domain. In particular, the objective of this work was to design a framework for IoT systems based on DLT with focus on security, reliability, traceability, and decentralization. The benefit obtained in terms of security, scalability, traceability, and resilience is bound to the architecture utilized. This makes our solution usable for most IoT applications that do not need to process external data in real-time. Nevertheless, a hybrid edge-DLT architecture would be sufficient to extend the system capabilities to any IoT application.