Chinese Court Makes History by Accepting Blockchain Evidence in Landmark Copyright Ruling

In a landmark ruling that could reshape how courts handle digital evidence worldwide, the Hangzhou Internet Court has become the first judicial body to formally recognize blockchain technology as a valid means of preserving and presenting evidence in a civil lawsuit. The June 27, 2018, decision marks a pivotal moment for blockchain adoption beyond cryptocurrency trading, signaling that distributed ledger technology has matured enough to meet the rigorous standards of legal systems.

TL;DR

• The Hangzhou Internet Court recognized blockchain as valid evidence in a copyright dispute
• Plaintiff used Baoquan.com platform storing cryptographic hashes on Factom and Bitcoin blockchains
• Judge Li Sha verified hash integrity and temporal coherence before ruling
• First time a court anywhere has admitted blockchain-preserved evidence in a civil case
• Ruling sets precedent for blockchain’s role in legal proceedings and intellectual property protection

The Case That Made History

The ruling emerged from a copyright infringement dispute between Hangzhou Huatai Yimei Culture Media Co., the plaintiff, and Shenzhen Daotong Technology Development Co., the defendant. At the center of the case was an article originally published in the City Express newspaper on July 24, 2017, describing an incident at a swimming pool involving a mother and her four-year-old son. The newspaper had licensed the article for online publication to Huatai Yimei. However, Daotong’s website, First Female Fashion Network, republished the same article without obtaining any license or permission.

Authorized by the newspaper to enforce online copyright violations, Huatai Yimei filed the lawsuit in January 2018. To prove the infringement, the plaintiff needed to demonstrate that the unauthorized content had appeared on the defendant’s website — and that’s where blockchain entered the courtroom.

How Blockchain Secured the Evidence

Rather than relying on traditional notarization or screenshot methods, Huatai Yimei turned to Baoquan.com, a third-party evidence preservation platform built on blockchain technology. The platform captured screenshots of the infringing webpage along with its source code and server invocation logs. It then compressed and packaged this data and stored the resulting cryptographic hash values on two separate blockchains: Factom and Bitcoin.

This dual-chain approach provided an additional layer of verification. The hashes stored on both networks were found to be numerically identical, and their respective timestamps were confirmed to be temporally coherent with the moment the website content was captured. Any attempt to tamper with the evidence after the fact would have resulted in mismatched hash values — a mathematical impossibility to conceal.

The Court’s Reasoning

Judge Li Sha, presiding over the case, conducted a thorough analysis of the blockchain evidence before reaching a decision. The court first examined whether the plaintiff and the third-party evidence provider Baoquan.com were affiliated at a corporate or shareholder level, finding no conflicts of interest. It then scrutinized the technical process by which the evidence was captured, evaluating whether the data could have been altered during collection.

The court compared the hash values provided by the plaintiff against those stored on both the Factom and Bitcoin blockchains and found them to be fully consistent. In its written opinion, the Hangzhou Internet Court emphasized that electronic data preserved using technologies like blockchain should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with an open and neutral attitude. The data should not be dismissed simply because the underlying technology is novel or complex.

The court concluded that blockchain technology satisfies relevant legal standards to preserve and secure electronic data while ensuring its integrity — a finding that could ripple through legal systems around the world.

A Precedent With Global Implications

The ruling carries significance far beyond a single copyright dispute in eastern China. By formally endorsing blockchain as an evidence preservation mechanism, the Hangzhou Internet Court has established a legal precedent that other courts — both within China and internationally — may reference in future cases involving digital evidence, intellectual property disputes, and online fraud.

China has been actively developing specialized internet courts since 2017, with the Hangzhou Internet Court being the first of its kind. These courts handle cases involving online transactions, intellectual property, and domain disputes entirely through digital proceedings. The acceptance of blockchain evidence is a natural extension of this digital-first judicial philosophy.

As intellectual property disputes increasingly move online and digital evidence becomes central to litigation, blockchain-based evidence preservation could become a standard practice. The technology offers an immutable, timestamped record that is resistant to tampering — qualities that make it particularly well-suited for the evidentiary demands of modern legal systems.

Why This Matters

While the broader cryptocurrency market was experiencing significant turbulence on this date — with Bitcoin trading around $6,157 and Ethereum near $442 — the Hangzhou court ruling served as a powerful reminder that blockchain’s value proposition extends far beyond price speculation. The decision validated blockchain as a tool for institutional trust, proving that the technology can meet the evidentiary standards required by one of the world’s most important legal systems. For blockchain advocates, this was exactly the kind of real-world adoption that could drive long-term confidence in the technology, regardless of short-term market volatility.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or investment advice. Past developments in blockchain regulation and court rulings do not guarantee future outcomes.