Evidentiary value and evidentiary status of blockchain evidence
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13657127241238020 |
| Author | Zelin Su |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
Evidentiary value and evidentiary
status of blockchain evidence
Zelin Su*
Law School, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
Abstract
Blockchain evidence is a technical method for evidence storage, transmission and fixation. Its
evidential value has a dual nature, reflected in the fact that it cannot be absolutely tamper-
resistant, can only provide periodic assurance of evidence authenticity and the commonly
used consortium chains do not possess all the benefits of public chains. Simultaneously, block-
chain evidence occupies a unique status within the entire evidence system, it serves as an evi-
dentiary storage mechanism, is essentially an electronic evidence reflecting both the evidence
collection process and outcome and its notarisation and forensic examination documents are a
type of opinion evidence. It is evident that blockchain evidence does not emerge in a vacuum,
rather than serving as a mere replacement for traditional evidence, blockchain evidence repre-
sents an upgrade in the functionality and effectiveness of traditional evidence. From this per-
spective, the improvement of blockchain evidence rules should align with the basic position
of ‘technological neutrality’, which means that although technological evolution can lead to
rapid changes, legislators are not always required to cater to these dynamic demands. It is
essential to distinguish between on-chain and off-chain when addressing issues of authenticity,
hearsay and originality, and improvements proposing should within the frameworks of existing
electronic evidence rules and opinion evidence rules, thereby unlocking the potential of block-
chain evidence.
Keywords
Blockchain evidence, depository mechanism, electronic evidence, opinion evidence, technological
neutrality
*PhD candidate in Shanxi University and Peking University, visiting scholar in Northwestern University.
Corresponding author:
Zelin Su, Law, Northwestern University School of Law, 375 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611, USA.
Email: zelin.su@law.northwestern.edu
Article
The International Journal of
Evidence & Proof
2025, Vol. 29(1) 58–76
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13657127241238020
journals.sagepub.com/home/epj
Question posed: Is the judicial application of blockchain evidence
necessary?
The theory of evidence law originates from the endless pursuit of ‘ascertaining the facts’. Although the
evidence law community has not reached a full consensus on issues such as whether to pursue absolute
truth and how to allocate the risk of wrongful judgments, (Bentham, 1827; Nance, 1987: 227; Twining,
1984: 261–283; Zhang, 2021: 129–146) there is a basic agreement on the purpose of judicial proof, which
is the reconstruction of past facts (He, 2018). In this sense, the value of evidence law depends on the
extent to which the truth can be revealed in the trial. When it comes to ‘blockchain evidence’, its eviden-
tiary value should also depend on whether this type of evidence can effectively enhance the accuracy of
fact-finding. If the answer is ‘yes’, then its legal status in evidence law can be accepted by judicial prac-
tice. That is to say, the judicial application of blockchain evidence is deemed necessary.
In terms of accuracy in fact-finding, evidence stored on the blockchain can enhance the authenticity of
the evidence to some degree. However, this approach seems to weaken the relevance of the evidence
(Zhang and Yang, 2019: 30). On one hand, blockchain evidence can technically achieve the effect of
‘fact preservation’, which highly aligns with the dimensions of truth pursuit and factual restoration in
evidence law; but on the other hand, blockchain evidence is limited by its ‘closed-loop authenticity’,
which in turn diminishes its function in proving the relevance of evidence, leading the challenging
party and the authenticating party both into the trap of its ‘self-authenticating’. In fact, blockchain evi-
dence can only ensure that once the evidence is on the chain, it cannot be tampered with. However, it
cannot prevent the ‘original malice’where evidence has already been altered or forged before being
added to the blockchain. Nor can it rule out the possibility of ‘multiple version reservations’, where a
party creates multiple versions of evidence related to a particular fact, uploads them separately to the
blockchain, and then, when a dispute arises, selects the version that is favourable to them for evidence
verification. The aforementioned characteristics of blockchain evidence lead to debates over whether it
can effectively enhance the accuracy of ascertaining the facts of cases and whether it holds value in
the meaning of evidentiary law.
Despite the aforementioned disputes, blockchain evidence, with its ‘self-authenticating attributes’, has
joined the tide of digital judiciary and smart courts development (Chaisse and Kirkwood, 2022a: 62).
1
In
China, since 2017, the internet courts in Hangzhou, Beijing and Guangzhou have successively launched
judicial alliance blockchain platforms. In June 2018, the Hangzhou Internet Court, through the case of
Hangzhou Huatai vShenzhen Daotong Information Network Communication Rights Dispute,first
affirmed the legal validity of blockchain evidence. The Supreme People’s Court issued the
‘Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Adjudication of Cases by Internet Courts’(2018), the
‘Online Litigation Rules of People’s Courts’(2021) and the ‘Opinions on Strengthening the Judicial
Application of Blockchain’(2022), progressively establishing the judicial status of blockchain evidence.
In the United States, from 2017 to the present, the Uniform Law Commission and the state of Washington
have directly recognised the status of blockchain evidence through legislation. Tennessee, New York,
Ohio, Vermont and Illinois have also successively acknowledged the legal status of blockchain evidence
indirectly by recognising the underlying technology of blockchain, such as smart contracts and electronic
signatures.
Based on the wealth of practical experience, it is necessary to further clarify: what exactly is the pos-
ition of blockchain evidence within the evidentiary legal system? According to the ‘Criminal Procedure
Law of the People’s Republic of China’amended in 2018 and the ‘Civil Procedure Law of the People’s
Republic of China’amended in 2023, blockchain evidence does not belong to any of the statutory types
of evidence. From a scholarly perspective, the classification of evidence types in Chinese evidence law is
based on the formation characteristics and constitutive features of the evidence (Zhou, 2010: 138–151).
Before 2012, the types of evidence in China were generally divided into a binary structure of physical
evidence and verbal evidence. This structure, which is oriented by objective physical evidence and
Su 59
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