We already mentioned that blockchain has a use case in supply-chain management and we presented a couple of applications for that built on Ethereum, WaBi, and Modum. We can expand this idea to a broader use case: IoT. IoT can be defined as a network of smart devices that are capable of autonomously connecting to the Internet and communicating with each other. The following diagram shows the flow of IoT:
Actually, you should be quite familiar with such devices; in fact, one of them is probably in your pocket, your smartphone. Just like we have mass adoption of smartphones today (and remember that phones were not always smart), the vision of IoT is to have smart meters, smart grids, smart cars, smart homes, and even smart cities. The next generation of IoT devices includes smart electricity meters, which automatically send measurements of electricity usage by a house to the utility company for billing. This is part of the idea for smart homes, smart grids, and smart cities, where all sorts of home appliances and infrastructure can communicate with each other over the Internet and perform tasks autonomously. Other examples include wearable devices, heart monitoring implants, chips for tagging and monitoring animals, smart connected cars, and so on. Pretty much any physical object or device you can think of can be designed with some computational intelligence and Internet connectivity. IoT devices can have various sensors and technologies for collecting, measuring, and transmitting data, like the RFID chips that WaBi uses or the temperature sensors and Bluetooth that Modum uses.
Some other notable projects combining IoT with the secure and immutable record keeping of blockchains and smart contract automation include VeChain and Waltonchain, which are launching their own dedicated blockchains:
All these projects target different industry verticals, such as consumer goods, luxury goods, pharma, auto sector, logistics, shipping, and so on. They also tailor their solutions in slightly different ways, by using different types of sensors, general-purpose blockchains like Ethereum, or their own dedicated blockchains. However, the overall idea and business application are the same; they are all trying to deliver effective and efficient supply-chain management solutions through the convergence of IoT, blockchain, and smart contracts technologies. And this is a valid unique selling proposition (USP).
Our landscape of blockchain applications is gradually expanding and the horizon is nowhere to be seen yet. Next, we'll cover the important topic of privacy-focused blockchain technologies.