Blockchain Can Legally Authenticate Evidence, Chinese Judge Rules

A court in China's Hangzhou city has ruled that evidence authenticated with blockchain technology can be presented in legal disputes.

Based on the official judgement provided by a law firm that represents the plaintiff, the Hangzhou Internet Court decided that the use of blockchain technology in evidence deposition can be legally viable on a case-by-case basis.

"The court thinks it should maintain an open and neutral stance on using blockchain to analyze individual cases. We can't exclude it just because it's a complex technology. Nor can we lower the standard just because it is tamper-proof and traceable. ... In this case, the usage of a third-party blockchain platform that is reliable without conflict of interests provides the legal ground for proving the intellectual infringement."

Previously, Huatai Yimei had encoded the images, website sources codes and other evidence through a third-party site named baoquan.com - a blockchain-based evidence deposition platform - and attempted to use that evidence in the proceedings.

A primary question in the case, according to the judgement, had been whether blockchain can be used as a legal method to determine the authenticity of an item of evidence, similarly to a traditional notarization service.

Even if the disputed media assets should be taken down at a later stage, the court decided that evidence stored on the blockchain is sufficient to be legally accepted by the court.

The decision marks one of the first officially sanctioned use cases for blockchain in legal proceedings.

According to the court's website, it has also launched a dedicated e-evidence platform that offers access to both traditional notarization services and authorized third parties, including blockchain-based evidence deposition platforms.

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