Elastic Smart Contracts in Blockchains

Abstract

In this paper, we deal with questions related to blockchains in complex Internet of Things (IoT)-based ecosystems. Such ecosystems are typically composed of IoT devices, edge devices, cloud computing software services, as well as people, who are decision makers in scenarios such as smart cities. Many decisions related to analytics can be based on data coming from IoT sensors, software services, and people. However, they are typically based on different levels of abstraction and granularity. This poses a number of challenges when multiple blockchains are used together with smart contracts. This work proposes to apply our concept of elasticity to smart contracts and thereby enabling analytics in and between multiple blockchains in the context of IoT. We propose a reference architecture for Elastic Smart Contracts and evaluate the approach in a smart city scenario, discussing the benefits in terms of performance and self-adaptability of our solution.