A Survey on Blockchain-Based Internet Service Architecture: Requirements, Challenges, Trends, and Future

© 2013 IEEE. The emergence of Internet protocol suites and packet-switching technologies tends to the considerations of security, privacy, scalability, and reliability in layered Internet service architectures. The existing service systems allow us to access big data, but few studies focus on the fundamental security and stability in these systems, especially when they involve large-scale networks with overloaded private information. In this paper, we explored the blockchain-based mechanism that aims to improve the critical features of traditional Internet services, including autonomous and decentralized processing, smart contractual enforcement of goals, and traceable trustworthiness in tamper-proof transactions. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive review to conceptualize the blockchain-based framework to develop the decentralized protocols for the extensive number of Internet services. This comprehensive survey aims to address blockchain integration to secure Internet services and identify the critical requirements of developing a decentralized trustworthy Internet service. Additionally, we present a case study of the blockchain-based Internet of Things (IoT) for neuro-informatics to illustrate the potential applications of blockchain architectures. Finally, we summarize the trends and challenges of blockchain architectures that benefit a multitude of disciplines across all the Internet service fields of interest.