On a list that ranks Top 100 firms and institutions with blockchain patents, China’s Alibaba outnumbers IBM to become the No.1 entity which has the largest number of blockchain-related patents, totaling to 90, around the world, closely followed by IBM’s 89.
According to a report on CCN, Alibaba accounts for 10% of global patents in this field, for the country, the figure is 56%, more than half of the total. Among those applications, Alibaba mainly focuses on building correction between its existing electronics businesses and blockchain, by applying the technology to practically tracking the process of buying, selling and transport, then further detect misbehaviors on the platform.
For instance, Alibaba partnered with Australia and New Zealand to anti counterfeit milk power on the platform. With the help of blockchain, transaction data such as the exact date of the dairy has been produced could be put on the blockchain and opened to consumers to verify. Plus, the corporation also extends the use case into the medical field by building a publicly-accessible, shared database between local hospitals in Changzhou.
As for the country, as it did a year ago, China now is busy paving way for the practical blockchain project and use cases by cracking down on illegal ICO projects and trading platforms. The government’s action cause the local industry panic, with numerous investors and punters, sold out their holdings, causing severer fluctuation in Bitcoin price, BCH priceand other altcoin price and confidence to practical project decreased as well, than the market shows today.
Today's cryptocurrency performance (snapshot from www.citicoins.com)
However, as we can see from the snapshot above, institution- and big corporation-backed projects are putting forward steadily.
For now, the current condition of bitcoin, the first application of blockchain, may not justify the stunning price fluctuation found in the bitcoin price history, nor other cryptocurrencies. For the whole market still struggles to wait for recognition from the traditional system. However, time will tell whether we are in the crypto and blockchain bubbles when first strong, active use case come out. Then, the companies and institution all over the world are paying their new attention to the technology behind.