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- Do you know that Gartner has predicted that “Blockchain’s business value-add will grow to slightly over $360 billion by 2026, then surge to more than $3.1 trillion by 2030”?
Neeraj Sabharwal
Technologist at Xavient and hands-on leader with cloud and big data expertise. Exploring blockchain solutions.
I know that most of you have probably heard initial coin offerings and cryptocurrencies. But what about enterprise blockchain?
ICOs have made a significant impact — both in a positive sense and in a negative one — across several industries thanks to blockchain. The positive impact comes in the form of raising awareness about blockchain technology, and the negative side of things stems from the misguided conflation of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Do you know that Gartner has predicted that “Blockchain’s business value-add will grow to slightly over $360 billion by 2026, then surge to more than $3.1 trillion by 2030”?
In a sense, we as technologists are betting on the future, and based on my experience in the blockchain industry, there is a need for a product or software to help businesses to get ready for a better future by increasing revenue on their investments and reducing cost to deploy smart contracts.
We are almost to 2019, and what’s the story now?
According to Accenture research, 2015 was the year of blockchain exploration and investment, which led to early adopters embracing the technology in 2016 and 2017.
Accenture’s prediction is that from 2018 to 2024, there will be significant growth, as we will see more validated information from lessons learned and new use cases, better software, service providers and accurate clarity on all the hype of cryptocurrency. Maturity in regard to blockchain adoption will kick in by 2025.
There is a need of simplicity when it comes to any new technology, and I believe that once we have a simpler approach to deploy smart contract and blockchain then it can open the door to more opportunities.
It’s also why I believe one of the top trends in 2019 to watch for is blockchain as a service. Companies like Amazon, IBM and Microsoft stand to benefit from the potential widespread adoption of blockchain, indicating that big players are likely working on figuring out the true implementation of blockchain as an enterprise solution.
Also, there are lots of companies, particularly in the financial sector, that have already either created their own blockchain projects or are invested in blockchain startups. Visa, for example, released its B2B Connect platform earlier this year to facilitate cross-border business-to-business (B2B) payments via blockchain. And Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are among a group of companies that have invested $32 million in enterprise blockchain startup Axoni.
So what exactly is blockchain as a service?
It’s a platform that comprises multiple blockchain technologies and enables developers to write and execute smart contracts without spending time on deploying and managing the blockchain. To understand this in detail, let me draw a picture for all of you to understand how blockchain as a service and smart contract as a service can enable businesses to use blockchain.
Let’s look at health care as an example, where you may just want to share patient information between various health care providers. So, let’s say in this context your application is based on exchanging patient information between hospitals, insurance companies and pharmacies. Your traditional application connects to software that provides a blockchain-based gateway that lets you store and process information from blockchain in the form of blockchain as a service, which can then lead to the idea of smart contract templates. I won’t go into the details of the smart contract, but just to provide some background: A smart contract is a piece of code that runs on blockchain and executes various business rules and logic to make sure that only relevant information is being processed and exchanged. Also, if there is a need of any checks or validations on the information before it’s being published, then smart contract provides that, too.
There are a couple of options to get started with BaaS and SCaaS. You can either build a blockchain team or center of excellence and create your own BaaS or you can leverage cloud-based solutions, such as Microsft Azure, AWS or IBM. As of writing this article, Google is a little behind with its own offerings, but nevertheless, it too has its own blockchain initiative.
There are also various startups that are based on their own version of blockchain as a service that use technologies covered either by the above-listed cloud vendors or uses open source technologies.
While blockchain is still a nascent technology, that doesn’t mean enterprises aren’t looking for ways to put it to good use. I think you can expect to see more blockchain-as-a-service offerings in 2019.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/12/28/saas-in-blockchain/#10ba1f2d2e1f
Tags: Bitcoin, blockchain, tsx-v