Energy Comparison of Blockchain Platforms for Internet of Things

Abstract

The use of Blockchain Technology in the Internet of Things will let applications in numerous domains such as Smart home, Industrial Automation, Transportation etc thrive by easily monitoring, tracking and securing data. IoT solutions using blockchain helps in transferring and verifying transactions in a secure manner. However, there are many blockchain platforms available that vary in many ways such as their purpose, ease of participation, governance etc. To determine which blockchain implementation should be leveraged for applying to IoTs, there exists a need for comparing different blockchain platforms. One important aspect we can consider for comparison is the energy consumption of blockchains and analyzing energy-performance trade-offs. Towards this goal, we profile the impact of workloads and further quantify the power consumed by different operations performed on the Ethereum platform and Hyperledger Fabric platform. In contrast to existing approaches that are focused on performance, we characterize performance and energy consumption for real workloads and analyze energy-performance trade-offs. The insights from the study can be used in developing secure protocols for IoTs using blockchains.