The internet of things: why this could be the biggest technological shift of our lifetime

Fear arises when you are in the unknown. When you know something, when you have got your head around it and you understand it, the fear falls away. And I think IOT, the Internet of Things, is one of those topics that people either have not heard of, or have heard of and vaguely fear, without really knowing what it is or how it connects to everything else that is happening right now.

So today I want to pull it apart, because there is a heck of a lot going on in this area, and blockchain is going to have a major part to play in the rollout of it.

IOT simply means the network of physical devices, machines, vehicles, appliances, sensors, and anything else that is connected to the internet and sharing data. Your smart watch. The sensor in a factory machine that predicts when a part is about to fail. A traffic system that adjusts signals in real time based on flow. A container ship tracking every item in its hold from port to delivery. These are all IOT.

What is interesting is that this is not coming. It is already here. By the end of 2024, there were approximately 18.8 billion connected devices globally. Projections for 2025 put that at 30 billion active IOT connections, with growth driven by AI integration, 5G and 6G networks, and falling hardware costs. By 2030, that number could exceed 40 billion devices. The global IOT market is already approaching 1 trillion dollars in value.

This is the automation age. When you automate the physical world, payments can be automated alongside it. Everything becomes programmable. That is where blockchain becomes critical, and that is why there are real crypto projects being built specifically to service this layer.

IOT promises genuinely transformative improvements. Predictive maintenance in factories can reduce downtime and boost output by 20 to 30%. Precision agriculture using IOT sensors is improving crop yields and cutting waste. Remote patient monitoring is changing healthcare. Real-time logistics tracking is addressing the broken supply chain system we currently rely on.

However, I take that kind of optimism with a grain of salt. They always promise that technology will make everything easier and give us more time. That has not happened so far with the internet, so I am a bit sceptical.

The real issues are privacy erosion and centralisation. Constant data collection from billions of devices raises serious concerns about surveillance and personal data misuse. IOT devices are prime targets for cyberattacks. Over-reliance on IOT could lead to system failures causing widespread disruption, and the energy demands of billions of devices, especially combined with AI, could put enormous pressure on the grid.

Here is the thing I keep coming back to. If we end up with centralised controllers running an IOT and AI-driven world, then we are really in trouble. We need decentralisation. We need distributed governance. Everything has to be distributed across the network. That is what blockchain offers that nothing else does.

I used AI to research the most prominent blockchain projects focused on IOT, and it pretty much confirmed what I already had in mind from my own research, which was reassuring.

VeChain comes up as number one by market cap. In supply chain management, it uses IOT sensors for real-time tracking of goods, ensuring transparency and anti-counterfeiting. It has partnerships with major companies including Walmart and BMW. This is the supply chain solution that the broken global logistics system badly needs.

IOTA would have been my number one pick. It uses a unique structure called the Tangle, a Directed Acyclic Graph designed specifically for IOT, to enable feeless microtransactions and data transfer between devices. It is ideal for machine economies, smart cities, and industrial IOT applications. IOTA is not listed in the IOT category on CoinGecko, which tells me it is probably being classified under AI, because the two genuinely cannot be separated.

Jasmy is focused on democratising personal data in IOT ecosystems, allowing users to securely store and monetise data from devices like wearables and smart homes via blockchain. It is backed by Japanese tech giants and emphasises data sovereignty. That is one of the main reasons I hold some Jasmy, because they are ultra-focused on protecting your security and privacy in an IOT world.

Helium is a decentralised wireless network, also known as DePIN, decentralised physical infrastructure network. Users deploy hotspots to provide low-power connectivity for sensors and trackers, earning rewards for doing so. It has now expanded to 5G with millions of hotspots worldwide. This is exactly the kind of decentralised infrastructure model that flips ownership of the network to the users rather than the corporation.

DigiBytes surprised me by being listed in the IOT category. It is a fork of Bitcoin, proof of work, very decentralised, and I have always liked it for its peer-to-peer network. I had no idea it had IOT applications in cybersecurity and data authentication, but they are actually using IOT to help secure decentralisation and keep people more private, which is the best possible use of the technology.

IOT as a whole category is still very small. The total IOT market cap sits at about 4 billion, compared to 28 billion for AI. About half of that 4 billion is just VeChain. This is still a fledgling category, and that is precisely what makes it interesting.

The way I see it, the coming mass adoption cycle is going to be driven by four major categories: AI, real world assets and tokenisation, decentralised finance, and global payments. IOT sits across all four of them. You cannot have autonomous supply chains or smart cities without IOT. You cannot have machine economies or AI agents transacting at scale without IOT. The two are inseparable, which is why IOTA, Jasmy, and Helium are going to figure prominently over time.

There is a convergence point coming where AI, IOT, blockchain, robotics, and 5G all start dominating simultaneously. For the longest time, nothing happens, and then everything happens at once. Action with knowledge is the perfect antidote to fear. The people who take the time to understand what is being built right now are going to be in a very different position when everything starts moving at once.

Your stress goes down as your knowledge goes up.

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