Who are the companies in China's Blockchain 50 Index?

On Christmas eve the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China’s second largest, unveiled the Blockchain 50 Index. Some believe the stock exchange hoped it would become the world’s first blockchain stock market index (as opposed to cryptocurrency index).

All 50 firms are listed below with website and news links.

However, there are numerous caveats. First off, the index attracted a lot of pushback in China including questions about how the companies were selected. Some believe it’s premature for this kind of index. Although blockchain is more mature in China than the West, it is in the early stages globally.

On the flipside, quite a bit of activity is under-represented. As an example of the omissions, the banking and insurance sector are the most active in blockchain in China, and apart from China’s second largest insurer, Ping An, few financial institutions are represented on the list of 50.

Furthermore, it was noted in China that a large proportion of the 50 companies, as much as 40%, are still at the research stage when it comes to blockchain. Only 10% have mentioned blockchain in their annual reports. For those that earn money from blockchain it only represents a tiny proportion of their revenues.

The other major issue is that some of the biggest technology companies don’t have stock listings in mainland China and hence won’t make the index.

For blockchain hosting, particularly those offering or planning Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) for SMEs, none of the big four have mainland stock listings and hence are excluded. Tencent, is the owner of WeChat Pay and one of the founders of FISCO-BOS, the blockchain technology underpinning the state’s Blockchain Service Network set to launch in April. The tech giant is listed in Hong Kong.

The same goes for Alibaba, which has a dual listing in Hong Kong and the US. It started and owns a third of unlisted Ant Financial, which in turn owns Ant Blockchain and Alipay. The other leading hosting players are Baidu (Hong Kong listing) and Xunlei (Nasdaq listing). Tencent, Ant and Baidu all have a diverse range of blockchain activities.

Other notable exclusions are the two big insurance fintechs. OneConnect, an offshoot of Ping An recently listed on the NYSE and currently has a market capitalization in excess of $5 billion. It might characterize itself as an AI company, but has extensive blockchain activities, especially in trade finance.

Then there’s the online insurer ZhongAn that was founded in 2013 by senior executives from Alibaba, Tencent and Ping An. The Hong Kong-listed company currently has a market capitalization of $46 billion and has a subsidiary, Zhong An Technology, which is a little similar to OneConnect.

The Shenzhen Stock Exchange Blockchain 50 Index