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Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms and Their Applications in IoT: A Literature Survey

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Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing (ICA3PP 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 12454))

Abstract

With the advance of blockchain technology, blockchain has been used in many fields. As a point-to-point network with characteristics of traceability, decentralization, de-trust and so on, blockchain technology is suitable for deploying Internet of Things networks. It provides the opportunity for the prosperity of IoT networks. As a key component of blockchain, blockchain consensus mechanism is worth studying. In this paper, we systematically survey blockchain consensus mechanisms from the perspective of Internet of Things networks requirements. We first introduce the requirements of consensus mechanisms in IoT networks to help researchers understand the connection of blockchain consensus mechanisms and IoT. Then we divide the blockchain consensus mechanism into four categories, namely, consensus mechanisms for security, consensus mechanisms for scalability, consensus mechanisms for energy saving, and consensus mechanisms for performance improvement. We further analyze those blockchain consensus mechanisms and point out the potential direction of blockchain consensus designs based on our observation. The target of this paper is to provide insights for researchers into the future development of blockchain consensus mechanisms in IoT and encourage more efforts in this field.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments on our work. This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China under Grant 2019YFB2012803, in part by the Key Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan under Grant 19DZ1100400 and Grant 18511103302, in part by the Key Program of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Innovation Development Plan under Grant 2018-RGZN-02060, and in part by the Key Project of the “Intelligence plus” Advanced Research Fund of East China Normal University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Yujuan Wen, Fengyuan Lu, Yufei Liu, Peijin Cong & Xinli Huang

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Multidimensional Information Processing, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Xinli Huang

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  1. Yujuan Wen
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  2. Fengyuan Lu
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Correspondence to Xinli Huang .

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  1. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Meikang Qiu

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Wen, Y., Lu, F., Liu, Y., Cong, P., Huang, X. (2020). Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms and Their Applications in IoT: A Literature Survey. In: Qiu, M. (eds) Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing. ICA3PP 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12454. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60248-2_38

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