Integrating Blockchain with Fog and Edge Computing for Micropayment Systems

Fog computing eliminates the need for a centralized cloud data center as it allows computation to be done by nodes closer to the edge. This helps in improving scalability, latency, and throughput compared to traditional cloud environment. Furthermore, with massive increase of IoT devices in the coming future, current solutions that consider centralized cloud computing may not be suitable. Blockchain has developed as a powerful technology enabling unlimited application and opportunities during the last decade. As both blockchain and fog computing technologies operate on a decentralized framework for operations, their integration can help in driving many technologies forward and provide tremendous advantage in terms of security and cost. Recently, micropayments are adopted into a large number of applications. However, individually processing micropayments will result in higher transaction fees where in some cases transaction fee can exceed the payment value. Due to this reason, traditional cryptocurrency blockchain like Bitcoins is inappropriate for micropayment transactions. As such, using fog computing for micropayment can improve the latency and scalability. On the other side, the increased speed and connection density offered by 5G technology will enable real-time processing of data as well as automated transaction processing between connected devices. The 5G technology will enable the smart devices to make micropayments by processing data more efficiently. This will have far-reaching impact on business financial management. The 6G networks will exhibit more heterogeneity than 5G enabling different types of devices to communicate in an efficient way. This will enhance the micropayment networks where different types of IoT devices will be able to connect and hence process payments and transactions in a more secure way. Integrating this intelligence with big data in blockchain and fog computing will change the traditional business models and support the creation of efficient and fast micropayment systems. This chapter explains the benefits of integrating modern technologies (fog computing, blockchain, 6G, and IoT) to solve the problem of micropayment systems. This is achieved by utilizing the capabilities of each technology (e.g., edge computing, blockchain, evolution of 5G to 6G) to bring intelligence from centralized computing facilities to edge/fog devices allowing for more envisioned applications such as micropayment systems where reliable, cheap, high speed, secure, and reduced latency transaction processing can be achieved. The chapter also highlights the various relationships among these technologies and surveys the most relevant work in order to analyze how the use of these disruptive technologies could potentially improve the micropayment systems functionality. Furthermore, various forms of integration of these technologies and associated applications are discussed, and solutions/challenges are outlined. The chapter also briefly discusses a generic solution to the problem of micropayments by integrating fog computing capabilities, blockchain, and edge computing to provide a practical payment setup that allows customers to issue micropayments in a convenient, fast, and secure manner.