Blockchain-Based Evidence in Courts: Standards, Reliability, and Admissibility Challenges

Abstract

The rapid expansion of blockchain technology across commercial, administrative, and digital ecosystems has introduced a new category of evidence into judicial processes, compelling courts to evaluate records generated through decentralized, cryptographic systems. This narrative review examines the evidentiary implications of blockchain by analyzing its technical foundations, legal admissibility standards, and the practical and doctrinal challenges that arise when decentralized ledger records enter the courtroom. The review outlines how blockchain architecture, hashing, timestamping, and distributed consensus mechanisms influence traditional evidentiary concepts such as authenticity, reliability, verifiability, and chain of custody. It further evaluates how courts interpret blockchain records under doctrines governing scientific validity, hearsay exceptions, relevance, and digital signature legislation, highlighting the varied approaches taken in jurisdictions including the United States, European Union, China, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Despite blockchain’s potential to enhance evidentiary integrity, the analysis reveals significant obstacles, including risks of flawed or fraudulent data input, challenges in validating permissioned blockchain systems, cross-border inconsistencies, lack of standardized forensic protocols, expert dependency, and tensions between immutability and data protection rights. Interpretive difficulties also emerge when courts must assess meaning, context, or intent behind automated ledger entries or smart contract execution logs. By integrating technological, doctrinal, and policy perspectives, the review demonstrates that blockchain evidence offers both powerful advantages and substantial limitations. The article concludes that judicial systems must cultivate technological literacy, refine evidentiary standards, and develop regulatory frameworks that reconcile blockchain’s capabilities with established principles of legal proof. Such evolution is essential for ensuring that blockchain-based evidence is incorporated into judicial reasoning in ways that uphold fairness, accuracy, and procedural integrity.