Internet technology is constantly evolving and it is important to explore the opportunities for integration of the Blockchain with these future technologies. This evolution of internet includes the implementation of different systems and protocols to work together. Blockchain can also adopt a similar strategy by bringing together other internet technologies to improve the overall Blockchain system model. IoT is increasing in presence within the industry, making it a relevant technology that would impact the hardware requirement for the participating nodes of the Blockchain system. Since its conception, Cloud Computing has been an effective network and resource sharing technology. This makes it an ideal technology for connecting Blockchain to IoT through appropriate resource allocation. Graphchain is a developing technology that improves Blockchain, and opens up the possible alternate solution of a Graphchain-based Internet. Edge Computing and Fog Computing are technologies that enhance Cloud Computing by providing equal performance for nodes connected at the “edge” of the Internet. P2P technology is associated with the early days of file-sharing, making it vital to understand the sharing of resources between peers in a Blockchain. Lastly, Data Networking covers possible architectures that can replace the current TCP/IP architecture and change how information data would be connected.
Internet of things (IoT)
IoT has established a new standard for current internet technology by pushing the connectivity of the Internet to smart devices. This new standard of connectivity enabled smart devices results in a centralized massive architecture. However, implementing IoT into Blockchain would expand how a node can take part in the Blockchain. This expansion is achievable with smart devices replacing traditional desktop computers as Blockchain nodes. This expansion also provides an increase in scalability for Blockchain. IoT has a major challenge that multiple different devices need to act as different main-in-the-middle for operations within the network. There are no existing communication standards for IoT between different types of smart devices. This could lead to limitations in storage and computation power. Thus introducing the need for dedicated servers and infrastructure catered for IoT devices. But this challenge can be overcome with the implementation of resource provisioning through cloud computing.
There has been several research studies for implementation of Blockchain [85, 86]. However, some of these research has the drawback that the test cases use cryptocurrency reliant blockchains and consensus algorithms. Since IoT will be a key technology that is already in the process of becoming the new norm, it would be crucial to implement IoT into Blockchain. Nevertheless, current implementation methodologies would need further research for proper integration.