China sees sixfold surge in new companies with ‘blockchain’ in name
The blockchain name game in China echoes the trend during the internet bubble in the late 1990s, when many companies around the world added ‘dot-com’ or ‘dot-net’ to their names
China has seen an explosion of companies registered with “blockchain” in their names from January to July 16, almost sixfold the number for the whole of last year.
The country is now home to more than 4,000 such firms that identify with blockchain, the distributed ledger technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, according to estimates made by the South China Morning Post based on government data gathered by Qixin.com.
There were 3,078 companies that have qukualian, the Chinese translation of blockchain, in their registered names during the past six-and-a-half months, up from 555 for the whole of last year, according to Qixin.com data.
In comparison, there are currently a total of 817 companies in the US and 335 in the UK using blockchain in their registered names, according to a search on OpenCorporates.com, which gathers corporate registry data from dozens of countries globally.
The blockchain name game in China echoes the trend during the internet bubble in the late 1990s, when many companies around the world added “dot-com” or “dot-net” to their names to capitalise on investor appetite for internet-related enterprises.