PROCESS FOR THE EXECUTION OF SMART CONTRACTS

Smart contracts are self-executable programs that run when certain predetermined conditions are met. The advent of blockchain technologies has provided the means to execute smart contracts in a decentralized manner without the need to trust a central authority: the proper execution of the smart contract is ensured by the agreement protocol of the blockchain on which it is deployed. Blockchain smart contracts, properties of trustless execution, make them an attractive technology for IoT. However, IoT applications often require the processing of large amounts of data that are often difficult to manage in a blockchain environment. In fact, traditional blockchains can only process a few transactions per second, making them unsuitable for the needs of many IoT applications. Additionally, traditional public blockchains require users to pay fees for each piece of data committed to the chain, which makes the use of blockchains too expensive in many IoT case scenarios, as they often involve IoT devices exchanging large amounts of messages. In this thesis, a solution for the execution of smart contracts that improves scalability on blockchain in terms of throughput and cost is presented. The solution is particularly suitable for the IoT, but its generality makes it possible to use it in a variety of scenarios not necessarily related to the Internet of Things.