An IoT Ecosystem Platform for the Evaluation of Blockchain Feasibility

The Internet of Things (IoT) has demonstrated promising growth, as it is crucial to numerous application domains in smart ecosystems, such as the smart city. Decentralization can help achieve growth, with previous research proposing the use of the decentralized blockchain technology in IoT ecosystems as, among others, it can offer cryptographically trustworthy interactions, nonrepudiable smart contracts, and interoperability between stakeholders. However, proposals are often theoretical or very specific to IoT ecosystem subareas, for instance, healthcare. In both cases, implementation may not be feasible in a larger ecosystem. This article investigates the performance, particularly throughput, aspect of feasibility. It proposes and demonstrates a platform that uses the blockchain technology as a building block in an IoT ecosystem. A permissioned blockchain network is built, performance is measured, and the measurements are interpreted in a smart city context, thus, providing valuable insights about real-world implementations and their degree of feasibility.