(Yicai Global) July 2 -- China's Alibaba Group Holding and the operator of mobile payments platform Alipay jointly hold the largest number of blockchain patents around the world.

The two affiliated Hangzhou-based tech companies had a combined number of 212 patents involving the public ledger as of May 14, the China Patent Protection Association said in a statement yesterday. The world has more than 3,900 such types of licenses.

More than half of the patents that the e-commerce giant and Alipay Information Technology, a unit of Ant Financial Services Group, had were outside China as these companies are doubling down on future technology development beyond country borders.

New York-based International Business Machines ranked second in the global list with a tally of 136 and South Korean crypto wallet firm Coinplug was third with 107. China's Tencent Holdings was No. 9 with 42 such authorizations.

Other Chinese companies mentioned were telecoms giant China Unicom, Ping An Group's Ping An Technology, and payment security firm PayEgis Technology.

The US is the largest blockchain market, based on the number of patents, followed by South Korea, and China.

Editor: Emmi Laine