The Internet of Things urgently needs a Ledger of Things to record data

The Ledger of Things will be able to handle the incredible amounts of data being transmitted.

Over the next decade, there will be tens of billions of connected devices—from thermostats and cell phones to parking meters and cars. Increasingly, these connected devices will form an Internet of Things, which is intelligent enough not only to communicate but also to process, negotiate, collaborate, and transact.

How are we going to handle this incredible amount of data that has to be transferred, and how do we do it in a secure way? Alex Tapscott said:

“The Internet of Things needs a ledger of things. It needs a way to register what was talked about, who owes whom money, and to coordinate these things.”

Alex Tapscott's book "Blockchain Revolution," co-authored with his father Don Tapscott, will be published in May.

It turns out that blockchain — a decentralized ledger system with applications in industries including technology and finance — is tailor-made for the Internet of Things. It is open, transparent and secure, has no core failure factor, and has the ability to create and enforce contracts. It has a huge impact on everything from power grids to transportation to finance.

Take energy, for example. Tapscott points to the Australian Outback, where a company called Filament, which makes smart sensors, or “taps,” is testing a tap device that can communicate with neighboring devices up to 10 miles away, so that if the communicating device falls over or catches fire, knocking out power to a remote community, other devices can alert the utility.

Filament owns the sensors and monitors their power facilities, eliminating the need for expensive physical inspections. The company also envisions other uses of sensors to form a rural power supply network through Bitcoin technology. For example, Filament could be licensed to a network of transportation companies that want to track teams, flag faults and determine arrival and delay times.

Hyperlocal green electricity

Closer to home (especially this author’s homepage), in Brooklyn, blockchain is enabling new micro-smart grids that could eventually allow for peer-to-peer, hyper-local green grids to operate independently from the traditional grid.

The rooftop solar panels have been connected to the grid for some time. But there was a blackout during Hurricane Sand in New York, when Manhattan was completely dark – the solar panels were also shut down to protect the utility as it worked to restore the grid, leaving solar users without power like everyone else.

Microgrids are essentially subgrids that are not only connected to the traditional grid, but can also be separated from it and continue to generate power in the event of an outage, and that resilience has attracted widespread attention and support from government leaders, from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to the New York City Fire Department.

LO3 Energy, the distributed energy company behind a microgrid in Brooklyn, wants to take the concept a step further by letting community members buy and sell excess solar-powered energy to each other, which is where blockchain comes in.

Lo3, a joint venture called InterGrid, which owns the network consensus system, is creating an open energy platform through a separate project to enable real-time smart metering of local energy generation. If built on the Ethereum platform, this will allow people in a community microgrid to buy and sell electricity to each other. LO3 founder Lawrence Orsini said that in March, Brooklyn residents had conducted the first-ever peer-to-peer energy transaction.

Equipment is managed in an enterprise-like manner

The blockchain’s ability to handle small transactions and its security, transparency and distributed design open up disruptive new possibilities for energy markets. Orsini said:

“Distributed energy will completely change how energy markets work. This will be a bigger economic change made by blockchain than fintech.”

The same kind of smart metering could change every aspect of the Internet of Things. Tapscott talks about a possible blockchain-based metering economy where individuals could rent out their home Wi-Fi network, cable TV service or parking space, just as they could sell excess electricity.

For example, let's say you're out and about. While you're gone, your Wi-Fi network can make Internet connections to nearby users and meters, charging you a small fee for each second (or however you've authorized it to charge). Or, Tapscott said, you could rent out your self-driving car or pick up passengers while you're away. He said,

“There’s a way to make money from excess capacity now.”

In fact, every viable blockchain device can operate as its own micro-enterprise.

It sounds like science fiction. To be sure, this brave new Internet of Things will require human ingenuity, especially from regulators and policymakers who develop new legal frameworks to protect citizens and allow for testing. But if machines are going to take our jobs one day, we might as well let them work for us.

Original article: https://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1756804#.VwuxSbkcUAY.twitter
By Amy Cortese
Translator: Slieta5
Editor: Kyle
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/the-internet-of-things-need-a-ledger-of-things)