How Blockchain is Revolutionizing the Internet of Things Industry
The implementation of IoT or the Internet of Things has made it possible to connect multiple devices to facilitate data sharing and communication. Apart from this, the technology renders a plethora of other benefits, including, real-time asset visibility, improved operational efficiency, and improved customer experience. But with the growing usage of IoT in business processes, the threat to security, trust, and liquidity has also increased.
One viable solution to overcome the security-related issues that come with the IoT is to integrate blockchain. By Blockchain paving the path for a decentralized future, Blockchain allows businesses to ensure secure transactions and data transfer between multiple devices.
Let’s study how blockchain is revolutionizing the IoT industry.
Implementing Blockchain To Resolve the Challenges of the IoT Industry
The use of IoT has increased exponentially over the past few years. Businesses from healthcare, manufacturing, and other industry verticals are implementing IoT in their business operations, however, challenges such as lack of data security, standardization, and more are becoming a roadblock to the successful implementation of this technology. Let’s delve deeper into some more challenges associated with IoT implementation and the ways blockchain is resolving them. :
- Data Security
Data security is one of the main challenges of IoT. IoT networks can acquire enormous volumes of data, some of which can be confidential and personal. This information is vulnerable to cyberattacks, data breaches, and theft.
These attacks can be in various ways, such as software, physical device, network, or encryption attacks. Attackers can take advantage of that information.
With Blockchain, you can make the data secure. The data on the digital ledger is safe, genuine, transparent, and accurate to use. It is impossible to access that data without permission.
- No Liquidity
In IoT networks, users generally face an issue of liquidity. Liquidity is the process of easy accessibility and availability of liquid assets, such as financial exchange, transactional services, etc., in IoT environments. As liquidity is concerned with financial services, it requires a safe environment. In a shared IoT network, it is difficult for users to go through transactions and value exchange regularly. It can sometimes result in fraud or wrong transactions.
Blockchain provides a safe environment for liquidity. You can transfer the required monetary values without the threat of any fraud.
- Lack of Standardization
Lack of standardization is the absence of acceptable guidelines or procedures in a specific industry or domain. It may lead to incompatibility between various systems, goods, or procedures. As a result of which, one can face the issue of messy, inefficient, or low-compatible networks. For instance, in the world of technology, a lack of standardization can make it crucial for various systems and devices to communicate and exchange data.
Using blockchain technology, one can standardize the network protocols. It can regulate these protocols by providing tight security at various points. It can provide a safe environment for the exchange of information, resources, and services.
- Lower Scalability
Scalability is a significant issue and concern with IoT. The management, monitoring, and maintenance of IoT systems and devices can be problematic if they increase in quantity, size, and diversity. Additionally, this can impact the network’s processing, storage, and bandwidth. It can slow down IoT services or reduce their effectiveness and availability.
Blockchain can help in scaling the IoT network. It can deploy your IoT infrastructure with flexible, distributed, and resilient resources. Also, it can help allocate resources to particular network points at one instance, and once the task is completed, it can allocate the resource to other users.
- Higher Processing Cost
IoT can help organizations improve asset management, business intelligence, predictive maintenance, process automation, and remote administration. It will help them to increase their productivity, improve efficiency, and reduce costs in the long run.
However, the high costs of IoT implementation and maintenance make participation difficult. It is expensive to maintain an IoT network as a hardware-intensive operation.
The environment of IoT applications needs to be stronger and therefore requires more expensive infrastructure that will last for many years.
With blockchain technology, you can control the data security in your IoT network. It can reduce the high processing costs of IoT networks, and thus you can expand your budget on hardware.
Use-cases of Blockchain-IoT
Some of the best applications of blockchains with IoT technology are as follows.
- Supply Chain & Logistics
It is crucial to track the availability of different products in the business, which are essential for regulatory compliance. The IoT data shared via digital ledger helps the company’s various departments access this data and maintain the product life cycle. Also, they can use it to locate the up-stocking or understocking of a product. It can also make the supply chain visible to agencies, brokers, and manufacturers.
- Smart Homes
IoT is essential to our day-to-day existence. In a smart home, it is possible to connect all the devices. You can access it from a single device, such as a laptop, PC, smartphone, or gaming console. A single home automation system can operate things like door locks, cameras, house monitors, etc.
Blockchain can address security concerns and eliminate centralized infrastructure, elevating the idea of a smart home to new heights. For instance, you can include security measures like biometrics and facial/voice recognition to prevent the misuse of data collected by smart devices.
- Healthcare & Pharmacy
Pharmaceutical agencies develop effective formulas for medicines, manufacture them according to and take them to the market. The whole process is conducted under prescribed guidelines. But, there are various incidents acknowledged where users got duplicate medicines. There should be particular steps to guarantee that only safe medications are made available to the general public.
Due to their transparency and traceability, blockchain technology can track the speedy and secure delivery of medicines from one location to another.
- Automotive
A crucial use of blockchain and IoT is in the automotive industry. The industry depends on the two disruptive technologies to access various advantages.
RFID is one of the best examples of it. You can access your vehicle’s particular location using an RFID tag on your car. In RFID, IoT technology helps you in tracking, and blockchain assists in the global storage and distribution of this information. For a self-driving car, blockchain can help you to save the locations, tracks the car, and for security purposes.
An IoT App Development Company can help you to develop an app to resolve parking issues. With smart parking, technologies make it easier to discover an available parking spot and automate payments.
- Fintech
Blockchain and IoT have changed the world of banking and financial services. It helps to promote less use of paper, authorized and protective use of data, cryptocurrency transactions, fraud detection, etc. It has also proven its strength in online banking, transfer of funds via various payment methods, and other financial services.
- Sharing Economy
With the help of blockchain and IoT technology, you can share the available resources. Here, blockchain can help you in resource allocation and maintaining a secure environment.
Connect to a top custom mobile app development services provider to develop a mobile app where users can interact and share various resources, such as printers, gaming consoles, etc. It can help you to share these resources with others.
Conclusion
With the help of blockchain technology, the IoT industry is experiencing a massive change. Blockchain has provided a secure digital environment for transactions and various authorities. There has been an uprise in several sectors, such as supply chain & logistics, healthcare & pharmacy, fintech, etc.
You can also enable your IoT environment with blockchain technology to make it more secure. Contact the best blockchain development solutions and take advantage of these immersive technologies.
