Standards and Protocols of Blockchain

Abstract In the present digital world, the day-to-day activities of human life is managed digitally, and often the scenario of “anything, anytime, and anywhere” holds. The three-dimensional buzz words which revolve globally are Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, and Smart Cities. Smart cities are feasible today because of the advancements in technologies such as ubiquitous sensing, heterogeneous network, intelligent sensing, and processing of information and control systems. Security is a major concern when all the daily chores are managed digitally. Therefore, more research has to be focused on security aspects to ensure authentication, privacy, and trust. Blockchain is providing a significant contribution to achieving a secured platform for distributed transaction management. There is a stringent need to discuss in detail the various standards and protocols of blockchain. This chapter explains the standards and categorization of blockchain and its protocols. It includes the protocols of network and data organization, distributed consensus protocols, the framework of autonomous organization that relies on smart contracts executed in distributed virtual machines, and the human–machine interface implementations. There are three main categories of consensus protocols namely, Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, and Byzantine Fault Tolerant which are categorized based on the applications.