IoT communications predominantly use broker or brokerless publish-subscribe models. Standards such as MQTT and DDS support these communication models. In the case of MQTT, the broker serves as the central supervisory entity, which can be either on-premise or in the cloud. This centralized, supervisory modus operandi is highly scalable. However, any attack on the central node (such as a denial of service) can potentially melt down communication in its entirety. From a security standpoint, the main promise of distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, is to overcome the vulnerabilities related to the single point of failure in centrally controlled architectures.
Decentralized identity management, tamper-proofing the supply chain, and so on, are supported by blockchain, as well.
Blockchain essentially provides a distributed transaction environment where-in, just like the DNA in every cell, a complete copy of the blockchain is held by every participant...
