# Survey of Blockchain-Based Applications for IoT
## 9 Economic and Incentive Models
### Incentivizing IoT Participation  
The concept of incentivizing IoT participation has garnered increasing attention as stakeholders seek scalable and cost-effective solutions to support the growing demand for connectivity. While blockchain technology has introduced innovative ways to secure and manage data, its potential to foster community-driven IoT networks remains under-explored, and token incentives can be used to motivate device owners and operators to contribute their resources, such as bandwidth, storage, and coverage, to the network infrastructure. By offering rewards in the form of tokens or cryptocurrencies, these decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) create an economic model that aligns individual participation with collective network growth.  
DePIN enable community-driven ownership and governance, fostering a collaborative and sustainable model. At the core of DePIN is the integration of physical and digital resources, combining physical infrastructure--such as wireless networks, IoT devices, or data storage systems--with blockchain technology to create self-sustaining ecosystems. A DePIN operates through decentralized governance mechanisms like Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), allowing stakeholders to make collective decisions without a central authority. To encourage participation, the DePIN utilizes token-based incentives, rewarding individuals or entities that contribute resources such as bandwidth, storage, or computing power. This model not only promotes economic viability but also ensures fairness and transparency through blockchains' immutable ledgers [69].  
One DePIN-based network is Helium, which leverages blockchain technology to incentivize the deployment and maintenance of wireless hotspots. These hotspots provide LoRaWAN and 5G coverage for IoT devices and mobile users, rewarding participants with HNT tokens through a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of Coverage, which ensures reliable and legitimate network coverage. By distributing the responsibility of network expansion to the community, Helium significantly reduces the capital expenditure typically required for traditional telecom infrastructure, fostering rapid and widespread network growth. The network supports diverse applications such as smart city solutions, environmental monitoring, logistics tracking, and personal device connectivity, demonstrating the versatility and scalability of its decentralized model [70].  
One application of incentivizing network participation is crowdsourcing, particularly in the context of edge-assisted mobile crowdsensing (EMCS), where data are collected from a large number of distributed mobile devices. Traditional incentive mechanisms for participant engagement often rely on centralized platforms, which are incompatible with the decentralized nature of edge environments. To address this, [PERSON] et al. [71] proposed CHASER, an incentive mechanism designed for blockchain-based EMCS (BEMCS) systems. CHASER satisfies critical requirements such as budget balance, truthfulness, individual rationality, and high social welfare, making it effective at attracting and retaining participants. It also enhances security and privacy by using asymmetric encryption for data confidentiality and Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARK) to ensure participant anonymity and discourage malicious behavior. Experimental results show that CHASER achieves a competitive ratio of approximately 0.8 and a task completion rate exceeding 0.8, highlighting its robustness and efficiency in large-scale decentralized crowdsourcing environments [71].