Blockchain-based Scalable Ubiquitous Code Allocation Method Resilient to Congestion

Abstract

Recently, the demand for global identifiers has rapidly increased since IoT devices are widely used around the world. This indicates that we need to build a scalable and secure identification system. A blockchain is effective to resolve global identifier conflicts and to prove the legitimacy of the identifiers. However, the blockchain replication cost may become a bottleneck when allocation requests increase. Here, we propose a blockchain-based scalable allocation system for a ubiquitous code (ucode), which is a standardized global numerical identifier. In our system, a registrar bundles ucode allocation requests into a single transaction to reduce the replication cost. Based on the blockchain data generated from the transaction, the owner of each ucode space can provide a proof to claim his ownership. The proof mechanism requires registrants to wait for receiving proof data from the registrar. We analyze the trade-off between the waiting time and ucode allocation scalability. We also compare our proposal with the conventional methods and find that the proposed method enables more registrants to claim ucode ownerships.