What is blockchain as a service (BaaS)?

Blockchain as a service (BaaS) is an interesting development in the blockchain technology space. Increasingly, we are seeing the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology from start-ups right through to huge corporations and tech giants.

The mass adoption of blockchain is driving the growth of blockchain as a service

Let’s quickly take a look at the context of what’s happening with blockchain. The advantages of using blockchain are wide and it’s driving mass adoption in most sectors including financial services, retail, and travel.

Many of the companies embracing blockchain are household names. When we took a look at the Top 10 retailers using blockchain, the list included Amazon, Walmart, and Starbucks.

Large multinationals like these can afford to invest in the development of their own blockchain solutions, employ the best and most experienced staff, and train their existing workforce in this emerging technology.

But for many companies, these options aren’t necessarily available or the most cost effective.

The growth of blockchain courses

More and more people are being drawn into the industry, which has been driving the rapid growth of education and training opportunities.

42% of the world’s top universities are now offering courses related to blockchain technology (or cryptocurrencies).

The growth of blockchain skills and jobs

The growth of blockchain courses is also causing a rapid evolution of skills. In the US, Upwork.com reports that blockchain is the fastest growing skill recruiters are looking for.

“Blockchain topped the list as the fastest-growing skill in Q2 of 2018 out of more than 5,000 on Upwork.com for the second consecutive quarter,” the recruitment firm from California say on their website. “Its year-over-year growth has exceeded 2,000% for the past four quarters, and it experienced more than 3,500% year-over-year growth in Q2.”

The growth of blockchain as a service

So, we can see the technology is growing, many companies are building their own solutions, universities are launching more training courses, and the jobs market is growing rapidly. For some companies though, the overheads generated in developing a blockchain solution and maintaining it effectively are too high to be supported by their business.

Increasingly, companies are looking to outsource their blockchain requirements to a third party who will set up, maintain, and run the system. For this, the provider is paid a fee. The advantage to the client business is they can concentrate on their business without having to manage the back-end infrastructure.

An example of a provider is Hyperledger. Their product Hyperledger Cello “is a blockchain module toolkit and one of the Hyperledger projects hosted by The Linux Foundation. Hyperledger Cello aims to bring the on-demand ‘as-a-service’ deployment model to the blockchain ecosystem to reduce the effort required for creating, managing, and terminating blockchains.”

Blockchain as a service is a proven business model

This is not a new business model – software as a service (SaaS) has been around for years and works on the same basis as BaaS. Rather than purchasing software and the necessary hardware to run it on, companies can subscribe to a SaaS product. This gives flexibility and the option to vary the level of subscription if market conditions change for the company, avoiding the need to make a huge and costly investment. BaaS is the same.

We have a range of blockchain guides on our site along with the latest cryptocurrency news.