Forbes released the top 50 global blockchain in 2022, and China enterprises such as Ant, Tencent and Baidu were on the list.

In 2021, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which once soared and lost more than $1 trillion after November, became the focus of news. In many ways, speculative cryptocurrency is the least attractive blockchain application. As more and more multinational companies integrate blockchain into their daily operations, blockchain is releasing incalculable efficiency and has a far-reaching and lasting impact.

Since its first release, the Forbes Global Blockchain Top 50 list has recorded the use of blockchain technology by about 114 companies around the world (169 companies submitted applications last year). The billion-dollar companies on our annual list (at least one billion dollars in terms of sales or market value) have surpassed the testing project and started to rely on the "distributed ledger" technology to carry out serious work in the background. In addition, whether tracing the source of key elements such as cobalt or tracking auto parts, blockchain is becoming more and more important to the supply chain.

Almost half of the top 50 companies in the blockchain are headquartered outside the United States, and 14% of them are China companies. It is worth mentioning that "venture capital" has become the latest trend in the blockchain field: relevant institutions have invested more than 32 billion US dollars in it in 2021.

The following are the China enterprises listed in the top 50 global blockchain of Forbes in 2022:

• Ant Group, Hangzhou, China

Since July 2020, this Alibaba subsidiary has invested 10,000 developers in the blockchain. They have created 30 applications and generated more than 100 million blockchain tracking files, including patents, vouchers and warehouse receipts. The most mature application of AntChain is Trusple, which connects international buyers of products and components (such as beads in the clothing industry) with 6 million sellers in China. The application simplifies taxation, customs and transportation, and allows banks to complete payments immediately, reducing audit costs and default risks. Nearly 20 global banks, including Citibank, BNP Paribas, dbs group and Mizuho Bank, provide financing through this platform.

Blockchain platform: AntChain

Core Leader: Jiang Guofei, President of Intelligent Technology Business Group of Ant Group

• Baidu, Beijing, China

The fourth largest technology company in China has 20,000 developers to develop (mainly) financial applications on its open source blockchain. Last year, they created a revenue of $47 million. For this $15.5 billion (sales) company, this is only nine Niu Yi cents, but the future looks bright. In September last year, Baidu won the biggest contract so far. It signed a $25 million contract with the Tongxiang municipal government in southwest Shanghai to develop supply chain tracking software for the synthetic fibers used by this textile center to produce clothing worth about $5 billion. The efficiency of transferring the workflow to the shared ledger has reduced the loan cost by 50 basis points. Baidu estimates that blockchain has helped the supply chain reduce energy consumption by 17% and can remove 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the environment every year.

Blockchain platform: Baidu XuperChain

Core Leader: Xiao Wei, General Manager of Baidu Blockchain

• China Construction Bank, Beijing, China

The world’s second-largest bank has assets of $4.7 trillion, and has so far handled transactions worth $141 billion in private blockchain, covering everything from supply chain financing to cross-border payment. One of its recent products is EasyPay, which aims to make it easier for enterprises to send large-scale transactions that require a lot of paperwork, thus reducing errors and auditing needs. If a company in Guangxi wants to buy palm oil from Labuan Island, Malaysia, counterparties can store their trade contracts, receipts and waybills in a shared account book. The local branch of China Construction Bank can handle these two transactions in parallel, rather than in sequence. As a result, the summary calculation time has been reduced from 2 days to about 10 minutes. The platform now connects 14,000 bank branches.

Blockchain platforms: Tianshu BaaS, CCB Chain, BC Trade 2.0.

Core Leader: Lei Xing, Senior Manager of China Construction Bank Financial Technology Company.

• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Beijing, China

The world’s largest bank (with assets of $5.6 trillion) has 40 blockchain applications and handled a total of $48 billion in transactions for local governments and industries such as construction and transportation last year. One of the company’s most innovative applications is Icago, which rewards users who use energy-efficient vehicles, whether trains, buses or electric cars. The blockchain of China Industrial and Commercial Bank connects ICBC customers’ wallets with government traffic data. Carbon credits issued by the Transportation Commission as heterogeneous tokens can be exchanged for digital currency, the new central bank of China. In the future, the carbon emissions from securitization will be sold in the form of bonds to companies that want to meet the requirements of carbon emission reduction. In Qingdao, which is famous for its beer, the plan will reduce carbon emissions by 99,000 kilograms in 2021. This year, the project will be extended to Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu and seven other cities.

Blockchain platform: Emperor Seal Chain

Core leader: chief manager Chaowei Liu

• Ping An (One Account Pass), Shenzhen, China.

Since January 2020, through the blockchain financing platform of its subsidiary, OneConnect, the sixth largest company in the world has issued more than $12 billion in loans to 1 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Guangdong, China Province. Yitongtong’s software uses government data to analyze the borrower’s risk status for banks, shortening the transaction processing time to 10 minutes, saving a lot of money for its 788 financial institutions, including the giant China Industrial and Commercial Bank with a scale of 5.6 trillion US dollars. In November last year, a subsidiary of Yitong cooperated with the People’s Bank of China to track and handle import and export financing from mainland China and Hong Kong, China by using blockchain.

Blockchain platform: One Account Chain (FiMAX)

Core Leader: Li An, Deputy Director of Products

• Tencent, Shenzhen, China

In the past ten years, Tencent has established a "super application" in China, which has been used by more than one billion people, covering everything from games and social media to information sending and shopping. At present, it is developing a one-stop blockchain platform-Tencent Cloud Blockchain. Ten provinces and cities, including Hainan, Guangdong and Beijing, have used it to issue electronic bills in medical care and transportation. By August 2021, Tencent’s blockchain had handled more than 15 million transactions in one city alone.

Blockchain platforms: ChainMaker, Hyperledger Fabric and FISCO BCOS.

Core Leader: Powell Li, General Manager of Tencent Cloud

• Weizhong Bank, Shenzhen, China

Weizhong Bank’s latest blockchain application encourages a sustainable lifestyle and rewards users who do things such as walking, taking a bus or recycling clothes. Tencent owns 30% of the shares of this digital bank in China, which issues green points through a small application on WeChat, which can then be exchanged for vouchers and gifts. All records are stored in the blockchain to ensure transparency and traceability. The platform has 1 million daily active users, and it reported that during 2021, the platform reduced its carbon emissions by more than 2,500 tons. Overall, Weizhong Bank has more than 70,000 programmers working on its exclusive "FISCO BCOS" blockchain.

Blockchain platform: FISCO BCOS

Core Leader: Ma Zhitao, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Weizhong Bank

The complete list of Forbes Global Blockchain Top 50 in 2022:

We analyzed the survey results in the past four years and found some interesting trends.

Seven elders

In the past four years, only seven companies have been on the list every year.

In 2022, several famous backbones, including Microsoft, Cargill and IBM, disappeared from our top 50 blockchain list. Although the members on the list are increasingly diverse—from Sotheby’s and Breitling to Boeing and Andreesen Horowitz)—— there has been a major shift in this year’s list of the top 50 blockchains, that is, the list has obviously shifted to companies that participate in public networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, rather than licenses such as Hyperledger. It is worth noting that Microsoft has recently made some news in the field of metauniverse, especially spending $68 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard, but how much of these efforts are based on blockchain remains to be seen.

Eight companies have been selected into the Forbes Top 50 Blockchain list for three times in the past, and they will be listed again in 2022, including Block (Square), China Construction Bank, Fidelity, Mastercard, Meta, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Tencent and Visa.

Asia is making progress

The blockchain field in Asia is making exciting progress, which is largely driven by China’s current five-year plan. This is a national development plan, which is required by senior government officials to China enterprises: China president said in 2019 that blockchain will "play an important role in the next round of technological innovation and industrial transformation".

In view of this straightforward guideline, Ant Group has specially sent 10,000 blockchain developers to help international buyers establish contact with international banks providing short-term trade financing and 6 million China exporters. Tencent cooperates with 10 provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, including Hainan, Guangdong and Beijing, and uses the company’s blockchain platform to publish electronic bills for medical care and transportation. Asian companies, including India’s Tech Mahindra, currently account for 24% of the top 50 companies in the blockchain, compared with only 8% four years ago. In China, the hotspots of these innovations are Beijing and Shenzhen. South Korea’s leading companies such as Samsung and Kakao, as well as Japan’s Fujitsu and Line companies are also part of this growing Asian team.

The listed companies in Europe have undergone great changes, among which six companies, such as Breitling and Société Générale, have become new listed companies, while 10 companies, such as Telefónica and Swisscom, which were listed last year, have fallen off the list this year.

The competition between Silicon Valley (a company located in Northern California) and Silicon Lane (a financial technology company located in new york) continued this year, and some companies from the hinterland of the United States were squeezed out. For a long time, companies from California and new york have dominated our list, such as Twitter and Adobe on the West Coast, Coinbase and JPMorgan Chase in new york. New york Legion lost IBM, but welcomed BNY Mellon, Sotheby’s and Mastercard. California Legion lost Oracle Bone Inscriptions and VMware, but welcomed Adobe, a16z crypto, Paradigm, Twitter and Meta. However, other big cities in the United States are also very interested in blockchain, and there are 12 listed companies (accounting for 26% of the total list) from New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia and other States, including DCG Group.

Finance still ranks first.

Perhaps it is not surprising that finance is still the largest category among listed companies, because the first application of blockchain-Bitcoin-is a kind of digital currency. Technology (including hardware, software, social media, Internet) applications are closely followed, followed by companies that improve supply chains, manufacturing and healthcare processes.

Two emerging financial segments are asset management and venture capital. Two venture capital funds-Andreessen Horowitz Fund (a16z Crypto) and Paradigm-are on the list for the first time, along with Fidelity Fund and DCG Group. A16z has invested in more than 60 cryptocurrency and blockchain start-ups, recently closed a $2 billion venture capital company, and is rumored to be raising $4.5 billion (new) funds. When Coinbase went public last April, a16z also made a fortune. It is estimated that its stock value has exceeded $4.3 billion. Paradigm, co-founded by Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, recently completed a fund raising of $2.5 billion, which is the largest fund in history.

Venture capital firms are not only on the list because of their shrewd trading ability. These companies are becoming active participants in the network itself, including operating full-scale nodes to guide the network and participating in governance decisions that help define the future of the network.

Blockchain project scale

This year, we also learned the details of how some big companies deal with blockchain. Our analysis shows that in our annual research, 22% of companies use 50 to 199 employees to support their blockchain-related goals, while 18% of companies have 10 to 49 employees in the blockchain field.

Less is more.

There is no doubt that blockchain enterprises have benefited from the bubble market driven by the central bank’s loose monetary policy, but in the past few months, the adjustment of cryptocurrency and stock market has made the bubble subside. The total market value of the top 50 blockchains listed this year is 6.3 trillion US dollars, which is 35% lower than last year’s 9.7 trillion US dollars. The median market value of listed companies this year was $66 billion, compared with $116 billion last year.

By the end of December 2021, the average valuation of a full half of the companies on the list exceeded $50 billion, of which the average size of the seven largest companies was $495 billion. Nevertheless, this is almost half of the average size of the seven largest listed companies in 2021 (it was $964 billion in 2021). One of the main reasons for this change is that Microsoft, Saudi Aramco and LVMH, the three companies with the highest market capitalization, which were listed last year, all dropped out of the list this year.

In the "Top 50 Forbes Blockchain in 2022" list, 54% of companies have annual revenues of more than 10 billion US dollars, compared with 64% last year. The median annual income this year is $18.9 billion, compared with $39.5 billion last year.

Translated by Vivian and Stephen

School | Li Yongqiang