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6G – the sixth-generation wireless network will meet the requirements of the Internet of Everything (IoE) applications and support the future of data-intensive intelligent society. Researchers and industry experts believe blockchain will facilitate the functional standards of the 6G network.

By 2030, 6G will bring a remarkable change in communication technologies. Although many countries are still working over 5G, some research groups have initiated projects on 6G. They predict that blockchain technologies may address the current limitations of the 5G network and assist in realizing advanced IoE applications for 6G. Let’s explore the potential of blockchain technology and its future directions here.

6G technology: The next generation of mobile networks will elevate the quality of service with a high-end user experience by establishing full coverage of the ‘air-space-sea-land’ system. It is estimated that the 6G mobile traffic will reach 607 Exabyte/month by 2025 and 5016 Exabyte/month by 2030.

6G will meet the unprecedented service level requirements like ultra-high data rates and traffic volume of applications while integrating with AI, IoT, and blockchain to form a network ecosystem. The applications may include Virtual Reality, holographic communications, and massive machine-type communications.

Since blockchain has been envisioned as one of the important enabling technologies for 6G mobile networks, let us understand the perceptible and pertinent challenges in 6G and foresee how blockchain can help.

Challenges in 6G:

Multiple difficulties are surfacing in building the sixth-generation network. Behnam, Biral, and et al. have discussed the following.

Scalability: Commercial IoT will have billions of devices connected and operated in the future industrial ecosystems. Customization of 6G systems during traffic needs will be a challenge.

Real time transmission with least latency: The device-to-device and machine-to-machine communication require a constant near zero delay for accurate operations.

Integration: Industry-related critical applications requires a synchronized integration of power distribution systems and vehicular networks.

Higher throughput: Network infrastructure must be able to handle the enormous volume of transactions in real-time produced by future systems.

Confidentiality: Standard validation and entry restriction techniques must be in place to avoid illegitimate changes. The lightweight cryptographic techniques used for the low power IoT devices may expose the data.

DDoS attack: Sophisticated 6G network will have a giant number of interrelated gadgets and this will increase the fear of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

Audit: Evaluating, identifying, and flagging the behavior of tenants in the network system are critical. However, auditing a massive number of tenants and adopting standard security for the devices will be challenging.

Blockchain benefits for 6G:

Blockchain can eliminate the above challenges by:

• Ensuring integrity of remote resources and offloaded computation, and building trust between the edge servers and the user devices.
• Improving spectrum sharing security and preventing tampering of the lease records.
• Ensuring trust between cache requesters and providers when high-volume content gets cached on user devices.
• Ensuring trust among the market participants while exchanging energy or resources through smart devices or energy trading markets.
• Eliminating intermediaries and optimal inference management.
• Enabling massive connectivity and eliminating scalability limitations.

Blockchain addresses most of the current limitations, though, vulnerabilities like scalability, Sybil attacks, and privacy leakage are yet to be addressed. The integration of blockchain in 6G would provide transparency and information sharing assisting industries.

The sky is no limit for the future of blockchain. However, more rigorous research, continuous innovation, and technological advancements will ensure a bright future. The field requires aspiring blockchain engineers, blockchain leaders, and blockchain business professionals to keep the needle moving faster.

If you are one of the aspiring professionals to join the bandwagon, stay updated with the technology advancements. Carve your niche in blockchain technology by earning a blockchain certification today!