The majority of Internet of Things (IoT) devices are deployed in a central- ized way as of today, though decentralized in nature. Many problems have been exposed: scalability, high operating cost, privacy concerns, security risks, and lack of functional values. Blockchain, decentralization by design, could be a good solution to these problems. First, blockchain is elastic enough to solve the scalability challenge of IoT in a cost-effective manner. Second, retaining data within well-scoped blockchains eliminates the concern of IoT data being stored in cloud and potentially being leaked or abused. Third, blockchain with smart contract and tokens has huge potential to enable autonomous coordina- tion of devices to create functional values. However, existing blockchains have their limitations facing IoT problems because of the special characteristics of IoT, such as, large quantity and heterogeneity of devices, and constrains in computation, storage and power, etc.
This paper introduces IoTeX, a decentralized network for IoT powered by a privacy-centric blockchain with four major innovations:
• Blockchains in blockchain for a well-balanced distributed network that maximizes scalability and privacy in a cost-effective way;
• True privacy on blockchain based on relayable payment code, constant- size ring signature without trusted setup, and first implementation of bulletproof;
• Fast consensus with instant finality greatly improving the throughput of the network and reducing transactional cost;
• Flexible and lightweight IoTeX-based system architectures purpose-built for key IoT applications across multiple industry sectors.