The Chinese social networking giant Tencent, registered the "Ethernet Lock" and "Tencent Ethernet Lock" brands before the state office of Chinese trademarks, dependent on the Administration for Industry and Commerce of that country (SAIC, for its acronym in English ), according to a dispatch from Sina, the Chinese news corporation.
This allows inferring that Tencent will increase, according to the agency, the developments around the blockchain technology already initiated by the Chinese consortium to take advantage of its leadership in social networks and digital services. However, the company still keeps secret what the purpose of the trademarks will be.
Tencent owns WeChat, the most used courier service in China, with more than one billion active users, who recently announced a portfolio for NEM that resulted in a 140% increase in the price of this cryptocurrency.
Tencent, recognized as the largest sales company in the area of video games, also dominated along with Alibaba and Baidu the digital scene in China in 2016. In the list of the most important Internet companies in China for that year, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, occupy the first three positions.
In the ranking of the most valuable brands in China, published in 2017, Tencent repeats in the first place for the third consecutive year and Alibaba is in the second, while Baidu occupies the fifth rung.
With that privileged positioning, Tencent's interest in blockchain is primarily directed towards payment services, such as WeChat Pay, which is hugely popular in China, and the wallets of WeChat and QQ, Tencent's other messaging service.