Industry 4.0 have witnessed a paradigm shift from cyber-physical systems (CPS) that aims at massive automation, towards a more customer-driven approach. The shift has been attributed to the design of hyper-cognitive systems, integration of virtual and extended reality, digital machinery prototyping and twin designs, trusted machine boundaries, collaborative robots, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based supply chains. This new wave, termed Industry 5.0, is expected to leverage massive production with user-centric customization outside the scope of Industry 4.0 ecosystems. Industry 5.0 is expected to assist diverse industrial verticals like healthcare, smart farming, drones, smart grids, and supply chain production ecosystems. However, data is shared among multiple heterogeneous networks, spanning different authoritative domains. Thus, trusted and secured data transfer is crucial to synergize and secure the industrial perimeters. Blockchain (BC) is a preferred choice as a security enabler to Industry 5.0 ecosystems owing to its inherent property of immutability, chronology, and auditability in industrial systems. Limited works are proposed that present the vision and holistic view of BC-assisted Industry 5.0 applications. The article presents a first-of-its-kind survey on BC as a security enabler in Industry 5.0. Based on a descriptive survey methodology and research questions, we presented the key drivers, and potential applications, and propose an architectural vision of BC-based Industry 5.0 in diverse applicative verticals. The survey intends to present solutions that would assist industry practitioners, academicians, and researchers to drive novel BCassisted solutions in Industry 5.0 verticals.

Recently, Internet‐of‐Things (IoT) based applications have shifted from centralized infrastructures to decentralized ecosystems, owing to user data's security and privacy limitations. The shift has opened new doors for intruders to launch distributed attacks in diverse IoT scenarios that jeopardize the application environments. Moreover, as heterogeneous and autonomous networks communicate, the attacks intensify, which justifies the requirement of trust as a key policy. Recently, blockchain‐based IoT solutions have been proposed that address trust limitations by maintaining data consistency, immutability, and chronology in IoT environments. However, IoT ecosystems are resource‐constrained and have low bandwidth and finite computing power of sensor nodes. Thus, the inclusion of blockchain requires an effective policy design regarding consensus and smart contract environments in heterogeneous IoT applications. Recent studies have presented blockchain as a potential solution in IoT, but an effective view of consensus and smart contract design to meet the end application requirements is an open problem. Motivated by the same, the survey presents the integration of suitable low‐powered consensus protocols and smart contract design to assess and validate the blockchain‐IoT ecosystems. We present blockchain‐IoT's emerging communication and security aspects with performance issues of consensus protocols, interoperability, and implementation platforms. A case study of a smart contract‐based blockchain‐driven ecosystem is presented with a comparative analysis of mining cost and latency, which shows its suitability in real‐world setups. We also highlight attacks on blockchain IoT, open issues, potential findings, and future directions. The survey intends to drive novel solutions for future consensus and safe, smart contract designs to support applicative IoT ecosystems.

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