The document discusses the integration of IoT and blockchain technology, highlighting their interdependence and the challenges faced in scalability, security, and performance. It emphasizes the need for system thinking and research and development to find optimal solutions and trade-offs between these technologies. Key takeaways include the need for interoperability, federation of heterogeneous blockchains, and the importance of clever engineering to create effective systems.

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An R&D Perspective
Traçabilité, sécurité, collaboration : ce que peut la blockchain pour l'IoT
Sara Tucci, Ph.D.
Head of Lab for Trustworthy,
Smart and Self-Organising
Information Systems
CEA LIST
Tuesday 10 July 2018

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VIEWPOINT #1
incorporating IoT in blockchains applications
EnergyInsurance FoodFinance
IoT
interaction

3. 3
Machines
economy
Decentralized
Interaction
MicropaymentsIdentity & Access
Management
Blockhain complexity
VIEWPOINT #2
incorporating blockchains in IoT applications

4. 4
Two sides of the same coin?
VIEWPOINT #1
incorporating
IoT
in blockchains
applications
VIEWPOINT #2
incorporating
blockchains
in IoT
applications

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WHEN YOU THINK “SYSTEM” CHALLENGES YOU FIND “VERY
COMMON” ONES
YOU SAY «I use the blockchain
to scale up to million of devices »
BUT is the blockchain SCALABLE?
YOU SAY «I use the blockchain
to prevent DDOS attacks,
malaware injection, IP forgery »
BUT are you sure this prevents to get false
information ? Or no information ?
YOU SAY «I use the blockchain
to securely trace transactions
among IoT devices »
BUT is the IoT device a blockchain node?
Resource constraints prevent to use even
classical asymmetric cryptography…
At the end you discover that you moved bottlenecks in the
blockchain…

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THE TRIANGLE “CONJECTURE” [Slepak and Petrova. The DCS Theorem, 2018]
Autonomy Resilience/Security
Scale
Capacity of deciding
autonomously on the next
state
The system continues to
perform its behaviour even if
any single node is
removed/changes behaviour
Ability to maintain
performances while workload
increase by adding resources
Pick two
out of
three

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R&D : SEEKING THE BEST TRADE-OFF, EXAMPLES…
A R
S
• Committee Consensus
• Tendermint [Buchman2015-18],
• RedBelly [Crain2017],
• Ouroboros [Kiayias2017],
• Algorand [Gilad2017]
• Sharding
• Omniledger [Kokoris2018]
• Ethereum Sharding
A R
S
+
A R
S
2-layer blockchain
• Lightning[Poon2017]
• Channel factories
[Decker2017]

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R&D : SEEKING THE BEST TRADE-OFF, MORE EXAMPLES
A R
S
A R
S
+
A R
S
And other emerging approaches for federated
blockchains
• Cosmos [Kwon2017]
• Plasma [Poon2017]
• Polkadot [Wood2016]
• Interledger [Thomas2015]

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But still R&D…not operational
so what to do in the meanwhile to build
IoT&blockchain applications?

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THERE IS NO MAGIC: YOU NEED SYSTEM THINKING TO PUT TOGETHER
ALL THE PIECES
 ORGANIZE YOUR ARCHITECTURE
A. Dorri et al. « Towards an Optimized BlockChain for IoT » IoTDI 2017, April 2017, Pittsburgh, PA USA
Transactions are generated by
users and devices to request or
share data

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THERE IS NO MAGIC: YOU NEED SYSTEM THINKING TO PUT TOGETHER
ALL THE PIECES
 QUALIFY AND AUDIT YOUR DATA
O. Gurcan et al. «An Industrial Prototype of Trusted Energy Performance Contracts Using BlockChain Technologies » IEEE Smart City 2018,, UK
Energy performance
contracts

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THERE IS NO MAGIC: YOU NEED SYSTEM THINKING TO PUT TOGETHER
ALL THE PIECES
 FIND THE ACCEPTABLE TRADE OFF
O. Gurcan et al. «An Industrial Prototype of Trusted Energy Performance Contracts Using BlockChain Technologies » IEEE Smart City 2018, UK

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Takeaways
• IoT and blockchain are the two sides of a same ”system problem”
• Single technologies do not provide a universal solution
• System thinking is necessary
• R&D is needed and the following axes are now well-understood
• Federation of heterogenous blockchains
• Off-chain transactions
• Interoperability
• Interdisciplinarity: economical design of distributed protocols
• Clever engineering is still needed to come up with “good enough” systems

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Thanks!Contact: sara.tucci@cea.fr