B-IoT: Blockchain Driven Internet of Things with Credit-Based Consensus Mechanism

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) plays an indispensable role in our daily life, in many cases, IoT systems are implemented following the client-server paradigm, which are vulnerable to single point of failures and malicious attacks. Due to the resilience and security promise of blockchain, the idea of combining blockchain and IoT has gained considerable attention in recent years. However, blockchains are power-intensive and low-throughput, which may not suitable for power-constrained IoT devices. To tackle these challenges, we present B-IoT, a blockchain based IoT system with credit-based consensus mechanism. We propose a credit-based proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism for IoT devices, which enhances security and improves transaction efficiency simultaneously. In order to protect the confidentiality of sensitive IoT data, we design a data authority management method to regulate the access to sensor data. In addition, our system is built based on a directed acyclic graph (DAG)-structured blockchain, which is more efficient than the satoshi-style blockchain. We implement a prototype of B-IoT on Raspberry Pi, and conduct case studies of a smart factory. Extensive evaluation and analysis results demonstrate that the proposed credit-based PoW mechanism and data access control are practical for IoT.