China Makes A 454% Increase In Companies With ‘Blockchain’ In Name

Putting aside bitcoin’s $1,000 price rally, the cryptocurrency marketing is possibly going through a bear cycle caused by decreasing consumer interest, yet from the look of things, blockchain remains to be big business especially in China.

Mentioning government information sourced from Chinese-language outlet Qixin, the South China Morning Post reports that, from the starting of the year to date, 3,078 China-based companies have filed to include qukualian, the Chinese word for blockchain, in their names, rising from merely 555 last year. In 2017, 16,600 newly-registered companies have included blockchain as part of their business strategy.

The information is however different from the U.S., where about 817 registered companies include the word “blockchain” in their names. Yet, that number, however, has attracted comparisons to the dot-com bubble, when companies add “.com” to their names to enable investors to consider them as trendy tech firms. Valuation increased but eventually dropped as the 20th century made its way to the 21st.

High-profile instances in the U.S. blockchain industry include Riot Blockchain, a former biotech company, and Long Blockchain, which before its crypto rebrand operated under the name Long Island Iced Tea.

These companies rapidly transformed into “proxy stocks” for the cryptocurrency market, and their stock prices increased in Q4 2017 together with the bitcoin price, as crypto-shy investors tried to gain exposure to the growing industry.

Yet, these valuations have risen during the recent bear market, surpassing even cryptocurrency prices in their rate of decline.