BlockEdge: A Hybrid Blockchain Framework for Secure and Efficient Collaboration in EEC Environments
Wangbo Shen, Weiwei Lin, Tiansheng Huang, Xinyi Hu, Mian Guo, Haijie Wu · ACM Transactions on Internet Technology · 2025
In End-Edge-Cloud (EEC) computing environments, the diversity of devices often requires cloud-trained models to be adapted for end/edge devices, complicating decentralized project management. To address this, end/edge devices are increasingly using local model sharing instead of traditional cloud solutions. Popular platforms like GitHub and DockerHub lack the necessary data authenticity and security for high-stakes applications. While blockchain can ensure secure data sharing, permissioned blockchains struggle with the dynamic nature of EEC devices. To solve this, we propose BlockEdge, a hybrid blockchain architecture combining a permissioned blockchain with Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) for cloud-based data management and a permissionless blockchain with Proof of Work (PoW) for decentralized model sharing at the end/edge. We enhance the PoW process with a dynamic mining algorithm and a lazy-loading Merkle tree structure, improving energy efficiency and computational performance. Experimental results show that BlockEdge reduces energy consumption by over 50% and cuts data update time by 91.73%, effectively addressing the energy and time inefficiencies of mainstream consensus mechanisms.