Overview of blockchain-based terminal-edge-cloud collaborative computing paradigm

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT), terminal-edge-cloud collaborative computing (TECC), a hierarchical distributed computing model, has become an effective solution to meet the various application requirements in terms of high computing power, high storage capacity, and low-latency services. However, the TECC still faces many challenges in terms of data security and privacy protection. Integrating blockchain into TECC frameworks can enable trustful data exchange between nodes while ensuring the integrity and availability of data. This paper presents an in-depth survey of blockchain-based TECC technology. In particular, we first introduce the key of the TECC paradigm and blockchain briefly. Then we focus on the integration of blockchain into the TECC paradigm. Specifically, the paper divides the TECC frameworks into three categories: one-layer, two-layers and multiple layers. Moreover, this paper summarizes core technologies in blockchain-based TECC architectures, TECC based on lightweight blockchains, and summarizes the application scenarios from different perspectives. Finally, the paper outlines the future direction of blockchain-based TECC.