IoT & Distributed Computing - Open Sensor Market for all?

Could there be a cryptocurrency that rewards IoT devices for sharing sensor data? Could there be a blockchain that algorithmically verifies and aggregates data to achieve local geographic consensus- yet provides market-based incentive?

IoT sensors are widespread in the world today and capture information globally every moment of the day. However, it is hard to convert a lot of this data into value- either monetarily, or scientifically. It requires complex solutions to networking, data storage, and staging systems and generally takes significant manual cleansing to analyse.

Crowd-sourcing data has to some extent, addressed some of these shortcomings. However, most crowd-sourcing is highly dependent on public interest and sentiment. It is not unlike charity in some implementations, and its long term success not built on a sustainable market model or a guaranteed revenue stream.

In blockchains and distributed computing, many different devices around the globe contribute computing power to sustain a global network. Their combined power allows for other devices to submit transactions, which become immutable and effectively eternally enshrined in the blockchain. Anyone can then access the blockchain, run a search, and see the transaction- a remarkably open distributed data structure.

When cryptocurrencies have been designed and envisioned, their primary purpose is to facilitate financial transactions and act as a financial vehicle. This has benefits in the blockchain acting as a distributed ledger.

In the case of Internet of Things sensors, could there be a cryptocurrency that rewards IoT devices for sharing sensor data? The sensor data could be then be embodied fully within the blockchain itself -fully accessible and transparent to all. Instead of a transaction being sent, and written to the digital ledger, the sensor data could be captured and The benefits are universal, yet the cost is not borne by any one entity. The blockchain itself rewards the IoT device with a digital token, that could then be exchanged for value.

I am not discussing the inherent value of digital tokens and cryptocurrencies, and want to avoid the question of whether such a theoretical token could be worth anything at all. The markets have spoken, at least for now- the people have voted with their wallets.

Traditionally, Proof-of-Work blockchains use distributed computing power in the network to validate legitimate transactions. This prevents someone for instance, from declaring that they suddenly have 1 million ETH tokens in their wallet. The other parts of the network would immediately invalidate that change, provided that actor does not have 51% of the network's computing power. In the case of IoT sensor data, the network could algorithmically aggregate at different levels of granularity, from local, regional all the way up to country scales. The validation and error correction and signal processing from faulty sensors could be then corrected automatically. The validation mechanism for transactions, could be adapted to ensure higher levels of data accuracy and to combat bad actors. Heavy computational requirements typically associated with Proof-of-Work could be addressed with new blockchains protocols such as Proof-of-Stake, which punishes bad actors by penalising them financially (removing part of their stake of digital tokens).

What excites me in any case, is the idea that the worldwide sensor data could be freely available and accessible for research and commercial purposes. A world where the data and knowledge to learn could be publicly accessible, with strong decentralised incentives for those share so that all can explore openly and with natural curiosity.