As China leans towards administering blockchain entities through classification along various lines like governmental, logistics and medical services.

Alibaba, JD.com and Baidu are among the companies their subsidiaries have made the list of 197 Blockchain firms that have now received official permission to operate in the country according to the country chief internet censorship board.

Non Commercial Use of Blockchain

The 197 companies have made it to the China’s cyberspace administration’s of first list of registered blockchain services providers. However, the registered firms may not use blockchain solutions towards any commercial purposes according to the release.

As registered firms remain under the “watchful eyes” of regulators, a serious search for other services within relevant sectors is ongoing for registration as the filing procedure permits even individuals.

Alibaba Leads

Alibaba tops the list after filing 90 blockchain-related patent applications. IBM was listed with 89 applications while the third spot with 80 applications was MasterCard.

Bank of America (BoA) made the top four of 197 with 53 applications. People’s Bank of China (PBoC) was also listed to have filed in 44 patent applications to secure the fifth place.

In 2018, Alibaba also topped the list ahead of IBM in a list put together by iPR Daily, ranking global firms based on the number of blockchain-related patents that had been filed.