It hasn’t been all doom and gloom for Bitmain this year as the Hurun Research Institute ranked them the 11th biggest company within China for the whole year of 2018 and placing first in the new Unicorn companies list.

The 2018 Hurun Greater China Unicorn Index collects data from across the nation and then compares the data, producing a comprehensive quarterly list.

A Unicorn company is a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion.

Ranking alongside business giants like Didi Chuxing (Chinese Uber analog) and Ant Financial, the creators of Alipay and DJI, this has to be a huge day in the lives of Bitmain and possibly in the history of crypto China.

Other notable mentions come from, Canaan who came in at number 54, Ebang who placed at 105. Canaan placed high on the new companies list.

The year also saw the blockchain place at 13th on the industry list, placing above games and robots.

However, the quarterly report for the last four months of 2018 shows less pretty reading for the blockchain industry as a whole. As if space didn’t need any more reminding, the report had this to say:

“In the fourth quarter, the price of the virtual currency market dropped sharply, and the price of the mining machine hardware market fell sharply. The blockchain companies listed on the mainland, Canaan and Ebang were downgraded.”

Cue collective groan from all involved. Yet, this new piece of news can only add weight to the recent articles from Asia Crypto Today which suggested there was no need to press the panic button over Bitcoin and that realistically it has been a great decade for cryptocurrencies.

So, let’s raise a glass for Bitmain and congratulate them on their great success for the year of 2018! Let’s hope 2019 will prove as fruitful.