Blockchain and loT: Security and Privacy Advancements, Integration, Opportunities and Open Issues

Dear Colleagues,

The evolution of the IoT-enabled devices has been remarkable along with their consistent use in our everyday lives. At the same time, the volume of data generated by them (either in communication messages or in measurements) is also increasing intermittently allowing the use of Cloud computing applications and Big Data solutions for the management, processing, storing, sharing, and visualization of the data.

In addition, blockchain has been receiving a lot of interest, far beyond the initial idea of an electronic system for payments. Frequently seen as a modern distributed database, able to guarantee immutability and security of the recorded transaction data in untrusted environments, away from single point of failures, blockchain has been considered as a potential match for IoT to achieve better efficiency, security and trust to the adopting systems. Examples of use cases where these two technologies combine their potential include (but are not limited to): health care, device identities, resource management, energy generation and consumption, and more.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews that address and report on implementation and possibilities of the combination of these two disruptive technologies are welcome. In particular, this Special Issue invites works that include (but are not limited to) the following resdearch areas:

• Blockchain IoT applications;
• Smart contracts for IoT applications;
• Decentralized identities for IoT devices;
• Evaluation of blockchain nodes in IoT ecosystems;
• Governance in IoT systems;
• Blockchain security;
• Integration of blockchain—IoT solutions;
• Trust in IoT systems;
• DLT-based applications for IoT;
• Machine-to-machine communications using blockchain;
• Token economy for IoT applications;
• Blockchains in the 5G (and beyond) ecosystem;
• Smart contracts applied in next generation networks (NGNs);
• NFT applications on IoT systems;
• Optimal resource allocation;
• Destributed ZeroTouch management of virtualized resources.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Dimitrios G. Kogias
Dr. Panagiotis A. Karkazis
Dr. Michael G. Xevgenis
Guest Editors

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