A more intelligent approach to selecting connections for devices can enable fast and secure blockchain networks, which are essential for real-time operations in areas such as smart cities, healthcare, and other industries.

The Evolution of IoT and the Role of Blockchain

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gradually realizing the vision of a fully interconnected world. Today, billions of physical devices—from tiny sensors to autonomous vehicles and industrial machines—collect and exchange data online. The security and integrity of this information are crucial, which is why engineers are increasingly turning to blockchain technologies. While blockchain is best known as the foundation of cryptocurrencies, its core function is much broader: it is a decentralized digital ledger where data is stored and maintained across multiple computers, rather than being controlled by a single organization.

Speed Challenges in IoT Blockchain Networks

Despite blockchain’s security advantages, most existing blockchain systems operate too slowly for many real-world IoT applications. Smart devices often need to respond in fractions of a second, but current blockchain networks cannot always deliver such speed. Research has shown that the main cause of delays lies not in the blockchain software itself, but in how devices interact within peer-to-peer networks. Previously, the impact of network topology—the structure of connections between devices—on the performance of IoT blockchain systems was often underestimated.

New Research and the Dual Perigee Algorithm

To address this issue, a research group led by Associate Professor Kien Nguyen from the Institute for Advanced Academic Research/Graduate School of Informatics at Chiba University (Japan) explored ways to improve the efficiency of IoT blockchain networks. Their work, published in IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management on December 17, 2025, analyzes how different network topologies affect data transmission speed and proposes a new method to ensure seamless operation.

The team created simulations with blockchain clients connected through various network structures. Their analysis revealed that decentralized IoT networks often transmit the same data multiple times, leading to overloaded communication channels and increased delays. Current methods for exchanging transactions and blocks can cause a surge in duplicate messages, which slows down network performance.

To overcome these shortcomings, the researchers developed a decentralized and lightweight algorithm called Dual Perigee. This method allows each device in the network to make more informed decisions about which neighbors to connect with. Instead of choosing peers at random, a device using Dual Perigee evaluates its peers based on the speed of transaction and block delivery, disconnecting from slower connections and replacing them with more efficient ones. Over time, the network naturally reorganizes itself into a faster configuration without the need for a central authority.

Results and Application Prospects

In a simulated IoT environment with 50 nodes, the Dual Perigee algorithm reduced block-related delays by 48.54% compared to the standard method used in Ethereum. Moreover, it outperformed even advanced approaches, including the original Perigee algorithm, by more than 23%. Importantly, these improvements did not increase the load on IoT devices: the algorithm uses passive measurements of already available data and requires minimal processing.

The potential of this approach spans a wide range of technology sectors. Faster verification and data exchange enable blockchain systems to support applications where rapid response is critical. As Dr. Nguyen notes, the proposed decentralized peer selection mechanism based on delay metrics could become the foundation for future blockchain platforms supporting real-time and mission-critical IoT services, ultimately enabling the creation of more secure, responsive, and reliable digital infrastructure.

The Future of Development

As IoT networks continue to grow and become more complex, the demand for decentralized and reliable communication methods will only increase. Researchers believe that Dual Perigee could play a key role in emerging technologies. This approach is applicable to new IoT services that require fast and reliable data transmission, such as smart cities, smart homes, industrial monitoring, healthcare systems, and supply chain tracking.

This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, grant No. 23H03377) and partially by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) through the creation of university fellowships for the development of scientific and technological innovations (grant No. JPMJFS2107).