Understanding the Convergence and Moving Past the Hype to See Real Value and Growth Opportunities
This study serves to explain how Blockchain and IoT can work together, what each technology is, how it works, how they integrate together, and example use cases.
- Blockchain and IoT represent two collections of technologies with tremendous potential to improve and optimize businesses operations and daily life, but despite the heralding of a new era the realized results have fallen short. Innovators have been combining these two groups of technologies in novel solutions, searching for ways to monetize existing capabilities and divining what customers may actually purchase. Service providers are exploring capabilities for these solutions to add value across applications, in use cases where stakeholders need a way to smooth transactions in situations that lack complete trust.
- As IoT connectivity progresses to support long range applications and high bandwidth applications, IoT can unleash waves of process optimization. While IoT is adding an identity and connectivity to billions of devices, simultaneously making it easy to measure and manage functions as well as making them vulnerable.
- Blockchain can be imagined as simply a way to find agreement with strangers. Or put another way, blockchain is a collection of technologies that secure an exchange of value without a central point of control. It minimizes the capability for any one actor behaving maliciously or deceptively to control the trusted chain. The blockchain’s goal is to reach consensus without a single central authority.
- Blockchain technologies can complement IoT deployments by adding a layer of verifiable trust to recording and exchanging data and securing devices. Integrating blockchain-enabled solutions into distributed (and/or multiparty) systems can mitigate security and operational risks, through identify verification, device authentication, and data transparency. Applications leveraging both IoT and blockchain can streamline business processes and transactions, optimizing and automating contracting terms and transactions with a consensus record that does not require a third-party approval.
- The IoT services ecosystem is fragmented but interdependent; service providers frequently work together across functions. The blockchain solutions landscape is also fragmented, with another highly complex value chain that requires proficiency across multiple domains.
- The market landscape for blockchain-enabled IoT solutions is fast-moving, with startups pivoting fast and established incumbents entering and exiting the space votsrelatively quickly. After much hype, enterprises are figuring out where blockchain adds more value than a standard database.
- Solutions in these segments usually involve complex and long value chains, with many multi-party systems. Service providers need to blend industry knowledge and technical expertise as they manage and evolve ecosystems. With 5G connectivity and a rising wave of IoT devices visible on the horizon, stakeholders will need to collaborate in order to standardize and broaden the appeal of these types of solutions.
- Fundamentally the market for solutions and services blending IoT and blockchain is nascent, with definitions and businesses models blurring and changing quickly.
Table of Contents
1. Strategic Imperatives- Why Is It Increasingly Difficult To Grow?
- The Strategic Imperative 8™
- The Impact of the Top Three Strategic Imperatives on the Blockchain-Enabled Internet of things Space
- Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine™
- Scope of the Study, in Regards to Blockchain
- Scope of the Study, in Regards to IoT
- Inside this Study, Much Enthusiasm in a Hazy Landscape
- Definition of the Internet of Things (IoT)
- Why Does the Internet of Things Need Help?
- The Needs of IoT Use Cases
- IoT Connectivity Options
- IoT Connectivity
- Definition of Blockchain
- What Problems can a blockchain-based Solution Address?
- Basics of Blockchain - Terminology
- Basics of Blockchain - Nodes in a Decentralized Network
- Basics of Blockchain - Building the Chain
- Wide Potential for Blockchain Applications
- Limitations of Blockchain Solutions
- Various Types of Blockchains
- Different Types of Blockchains
- Variety of Enterprise Blockchain Platforms
- Leading Platforms for Enterprise IoT Blockchains
- Common Modifications of Leading Platforms
- How Blockchain and IoT Can Work Together
- Building Trust With Blockchain
- Organizations Need Ways to Ensure Verifiability
- What Blockchain-enabled IoT Solutions Can do in the Enterprise
- Benefits of Blending Blockchain and IoT
- How IoT and Blockchain Interact
- Blockchain and IoT Integration Options
- IoT and Blockchain Integration Considerations
- Challenges in Developing Blockchain-enabled Solutions with Enterprise IoT
- Challenges Bridging Enterprise Networks and Blockchains
- What It Means - Tremendous Potential
- What It Means - Tempering Overenthusiasm
- Limitations of Blockchain-enabled IoT Solutions
- COVID Derived Challenges
- Services Landscape
- Global Big Tech Service Providers entering Blockchain
- Blockchain as a service
- Blockchain-IoT Service Providers
- Startup Activity
- Blockchain Use Cases Across industries
- Select Application Segments
- Blockchain and IoT in Transportation and Logistics
- IoT & Blockchain Functions in Transport & Logistics
- IoT and Blockchain Solutions - Transportation & Logistics
- Example in Transportation & Logistics - Fr8 Network
- Blockchain and IoT in Agriculture
- IoT and Blockchain Functions in Agriculture
- IoT and Blockchain Solutions - Agriculture
- Example - IBM FooD Trust
- Blockchain and IoT in Healthcare
- Healthcare IoT and Blockchain Functions
- IoT and Blockchain Solutions - Healthcare
- Example - Chronicled and Mediledger
- Blockchain and IoT in Automotive Sector
- Automotive IoT and Blockchain Potential Functions
- IoT and Blockchain Solutions - Automotive
- Automotive Sustainability and Ethics in Smart Contracts
- Growth Opportunity 1 - A 5G-based Ecosystem where Telcos, IoT App Providers, and Blockchain Providers Work Together
- Growth Opportunity 2 - Affordable Hardware/Connectivity Enable Mass IoT Deployments, Scalability Concerns Persist
- Growth Opportunity 3 - Embedding Blockchain-based Security Throughout IoT Technology Stack
- Growth Opportunity 4 - Building Consensus Across Industries and Sectors will Create New Opportunities
- Legal Disclaimer
Companies Mentioned (Partial List)
A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to:
- Chronicled
- IBM
- Mediledger