Guest Editorial: Blockchain Solutions for Industrial Internet of Things

The papers in this special section explores the state-of-the-art advances in adopting blockchain technologies for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). There is a growing trend of adopting blockchain technologies to the IIoT due to the traceability, nonrepudiation, and immutability of blockchain systems. The proliferation of IIoT to industrial systems is fostering the fourth industrial revolution (aka Industry 4.0) while IIoT also confronts several challenges exhibiting in the following two perspectives: 1) security and privacy protection of IIoT data; 2) interoperability absence across IIoT systems. Blockchain and blockchain-enabled smart contracts can essentially offer solutions to address the emerging challenges in IIoT.