From 2017 to 2018, the hype of virtual currency drove the pursuit of blockchain technology by capital, and the number of companies in the name of blockchain showed a blowout growth, resulting in a large number of bubbles.
Since 2019, blockchain investment and financing cases have dropped by more than 60% compared to 2018. The investment environment has cooled, and the industry has returned to rationality, focusing on technology itself. Startups compete fiercely with Internet and financial giants in the field of patents to protect research results and improve market competitiveness, brand reputation and credibility.
Odaily Research Institute compiled the following charts on the investment and financing status, start-up environment and patent distribution in the blockchain field in 2019, so as to summarize and predict the development trend.
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IT Juzi data display, Odaily Research Institute statistics
Among them, according to the financing amount, the top three blockchain financing projects in 2019 are tZero, Ripple, and Bakkt. From the perspective of industry, finance is still the industry preferred by investors. Among the financing events with a level of 100 million yuan, the financial industry accounted for 66%, followed by enterprise services.
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According to Qichacha, as of the end of December 2019, a total of 163,230 companies in my country contained the word "blockchain" in their names/former names, business scope or product information (name). From the perspective of the number of new companies, the number of new blockchain companies in my country exceeded 4,000 in 2017. In 2018, the number of new blockchain companies was 15,059. Although the number of new blockchain companies has decreased since 2019, there were 8,895 new companies as of October.
From 2017 to 2018, the explosive growth of the number of new blockchain companies is due to the continuous development of blockchain technology, the unprecedented rise in market conditions, and the influx of more and more talents. In 2019, as the popularity of the concept declined, the number of new blockchain companies began to decrease. It is worth noting that although the number of companies with the word "blockchain" is as high as 163,230, there are less than 1,000 companies that actually carry out blockchain business or focus on blockchain business. Nearly 400 companies have registered for blockchain information services,The gold content of blockchain companies needs to be improved。
In terms of regional distribution, Beijing accounted for the largest number, followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou. From the perspective of development history, Shanghai has the most first-mover advantage. At present, several well-known blockchain projects such as NEO and Quantum Chain have appeared in Shanghai; there are more blockchain companies in Beijing, and the industry atmosphere and exchanges are active; Hangzhou With good blockchain policy conditions, the Zhejiang provincial government has included blockchain development in the government work report, giving blockchain start-up companies entrepreneurial space, and the company registration threshold is relatively low.
From the perspective of the distribution of the entire industry, the development of my country's blockchain industry is still in the early stages of exploration, covering limited industries and fields, mainly concentrated in the financial and corporate service fields, accounting for 80%. The financial field mainly includes cryptocurrency-related transaction services, cross-border payments, supply chain finance, etc. Judging from the current development situation, supply chain finance is a key area for the blockchain industry to achieve breakthroughs. Enterprise services mainly focus on the construction of the underlying blockchain and infrastructure, providing data on-chain services for the Internet and traditional enterprises, including traceability systems, BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) platforms, and electronic certificate deposit cloud services.
While entrepreneurship in the blockchain field is heating up, both Internet or financial giants and start-up companies are fiercely competing in the patent field to protect research results, improve market competitiveness, and enhance brand reputation and credibility.
The proportion of the number of blockchain patents in the world's new patents is also increasing year by year. Looking at the patent situation in my country alone, the increase has exceeded 250% for two consecutive years, and the enthusiasm for patent applications ranks among the top in the world. According to statistics, my country accounted for 66% of blockchain patent applications in 2019, followed by the United States at 13%, South Korea at 5%, France at 4%, Germany and Spain at 3%, Australia and Spain at 3%. Japan each accounted for 2%, and the United Kingdom and Canada each accounted for 1%.
In terms of enterprises, 90% of blockchain patents in my country come from enterprises, and BATJ is the enterprise with the most blockchain patent applications. In addition to the Internet, operators, and financial giants, there are also many emerging blockchain companies at the top of the list.
After the Political Bureau of the Central Committee collectively learned the blockchain, the blockchain boom started again, and many venture capital gradually returned to optimism and re-entered the encryption market. Investment methods have also begun to diversify, from the previous equity investment in start-up companies to more fields such as the secondary market and Bitcoin mining. More importantly, with the successful listing of Canaan Technology on NASDAQ in the United States, blockchain is no longer a marginal niche industry, but has become an industry accepted by traditional capital markets and mainstream capital. This means that in the future, more companies will combine blockchain technology to develop more high-standard blockchain patents, which will benefit the long-term and healthy development of the blockchain industry.
