Does blockchain really need a blockchain? A detailed explanation of the application and development process of certificate

Author: Creek Tower Technology

When looking for a blockchain application scenario, many companies will choose "certificate deposit" as the entry point, and use the blockchain as a certificate deposit tool. Although there is a market for blockchain in deposit certificates, does this field really need this technology? This research is based on this core, combining the common and judicial deposit application scenarios. It analyzes the actual use of the current enterprise and compiles a document for the enterprise to use as a reference point when selecting blockchain deposit certificate .

Application scenario

At this stage, various industries basically use the blockchain as a certificate storage tool. The specific investigation is as follows:

1.1 Supply chain

At present, there are many companies using blockchain in the supply chain field. The enterprise attaches the blockchain to its original business, adds the core enterprises in the original business to the system, and uses the technical characteristics of the blockchain to create a trusted and secure supply chain platform for storing its business. Important information within the process. For these companies, the "immutability" of the blockchain is the most important. They use the blockchain to create a credible certificate system for the entire business process.

1.2 Traceability

Source tracing is also one of the areas where blockchain is widely used at this stage, and most of them are for cross-border products and food. For these products, the source of the product is extremely important, so a tool is needed to prove the authenticity of the product source and the traceability of the circulation. Enterprises have established a product data traceability system through the blockchain to achieve big data storage. Therefore, to trace its essence, traceability also uses the blockchain as a tool for certificate.

1.3 Electronic contract

The electronic contract service provider, which is committed to the development and application of electronic contracts and blockchain certificate fields, provides users with more credible electronic contract signing, electronic contract certificate, and judicial landing services through the blockchain. Blockchain is used as a tool for certificate.

1.4 Deposit

There are also some companies that directly position themselves as certificate storage platforms, and use blockchain technology to create a platform that provides trusted data, digital identities, and digital credentials to achieve trusted collaboration between partners and users.

1.5 Banking

Banks at home and abroad have launched blockchain-related applications, such as domestic banks' interbank customer information sharing platforms, letter of credit information transmission systems, and blockchain-based financial industry digital signing platforms.

The information sharing platform is led by the government and centralizes data from departments such as industry and commerce, taxation, courts, public security, land, real estate and other departments for each bank to make full adjustments when it comes to corporate or personal loans. This type of application's appeal for data lies in authenticity and multi-party sharing, which solves the problems of banks' difficulty in obtaining data in the original business process, and because the data is too scattered, it takes more time to obtain data. In addition, the original data sharing platform cannot guarantee that the data will not be tampered with, and the appearance of the blockchain can better ensure the authenticity and security of the original data.

The domestic letter of credit information transmission system uses the blockchain technology in the letter of credit settlement system, and implements the issuance, notification, presentation, acceptance messages, and payment messages of the letter of credit through this system, shortening credit The transmission time of certificates and documents, and at the same time, the blockchain technology reduces the possibility of data loss and tampering, and improves the security of the letter of credit business.

Interbank digital signing refers to the signing of agreements in the cooperation between two or more parties in the financial industry. For a long time, there has not been a very efficient digital method for the signing of agreements between financial industries. Therefore, banks have developed a blockchain-based digital signing platform for the same industry, hoping to provide a more convenient, digital, secure, and fair way to sign complex agreements between financial industries. And the supervision department can monitor and inspect the system in real time.

So for the banking industry, the essence of using the blockchain is to store important information, transaction data, etc., and read the data for verification when needed. Compared with the original data storage platform, based on the blockchain technology, it can better ensure the authenticity of the data, and the data is more credible than the original system.

1.6 Copyright issues

The copyright protection process of music and artwork is too complicated. Generally, copyright protection is applied. After the review is approved, the work will no longer be hot. If creators can upload their creations to a blockchain platform before publishing, forming their unique copyrights, the copyright protection of creative works can be achieved more efficiently. This is also a major manifestation of the demand for blockchain certification.

Similar to the demands of the music and art circles on the blockchain, the academic community also needs a similar platform to conduct research on evidence, which can prevent academic plagiarism and counterfeiting to a certain extent.

1.7 Government Affairs System

The government affairs system based on blockchain has similar principles to the information sharing platforms built by the banks mentioned above. The blockchain-based government affairs system has realized the centralization of data including departments of industry and commerce, taxation, courts, public security, land and real estate, etc., for each government affairs department to call the data when conducting business to verify the information provided by the business operator Consistent with actual data. Therefore, the demands of the government affairs system for the blockchain are also the need for evidence.

1.8 Internet of Things

The nature of the Internet of Things is connected to big data. As the number of installed Internet of Things units continues to increase, the data on consumption habits and behavior patterns collected by the Internet of Things has doubled. . In this case, the Internet of Things requires a Ledger of Things. The account book needs to store all the information that occurs in the Internet of Things, including transaction status and account information. At present, blockchain technology is an industry The preferred technology, the company believes that the technical characteristics of the blockchain can provide credibility for this data depository ledger.

1.9 Insurance industry

Insurance is a very complicated system. The participation of multiple parties from the insurance to the payment process involves a high degree of risk. The most common risks are loss of information, fraud, etc. The auxiliary function of the blockchain to the insurance industry is manifested in the realization of full-process data storage in the early stages of business development, providing insurance companies and consumers with a more credible data storage platform, which prevents the disputes in claims and rises when necessary. Provide evidence at the judicial level.

1.10 Cloud Storage

The biggest problem of cloud storage is that when the central storage server fails, all uploaded files are lost and damaged. At the same time, cloud storage also has problems such as privacy leaks. Combining cloud storage with the blockchain reduces the probability of data loss and better protects user data privacy. The essence is to achieve a more secure and trusted data storage.

1.11 Charity

The biggest problem facing public welfare is the lack of trust. For charitable organizations to obtain sustained support, they must have credibility, and information transparency is a prerequisite for credibility.

At the same time, the internal management of charities lacks the necessary supervision and auditing. Blockchain is combined with public welfare undertakings to store charitable information and necessary processes for data certification. Through the technical characteristics of blockchain, the credibility of public welfare organizations is improved (but this does not mean that the trust problem can be completely solved).

1.12 voting

Many countries are currently trying to replace traditional paper voting systems with electronic voting systems. This kind of electronic voting usually comes in two forms: one is to set up a polling station, use a voting machine to vote, and the other is to vote on the Internet.

Compared with traditional paper voting, the electronic voting equipment used at polling stations has the advantages of reducing resource consumption, and this type of voting can also be implemented in remote areas today. However, there are many problems with Internet voting, such as network attacks, process modification, denial of service, and virus attacks on voters' computers. Blockchain can be used as one of the technical means for electronic voting to make electronic voting more credible. Therefore, the electronic voting system implemented through the blockchain is essentially a certificate storage platform where the voting results can be verified and reviewed at any time.

1.13 Other

There are still many industries in the market that use blockchain as a means to store certificates, such as medical care, e-commerce, real estate, etc. The company has realized a data storage platform through this technology. It hopes to provide data with credibility and protect the privacy of data.

Judicial evidence

When individual or collective rights are infringed and the problem rises to the judicial level, evidence is needed to support the judge in judging the case. In this process, the original evidence provided by people usually does not have credibility, and a notary of a notary office is required to achieve evidence preservation. Evidence provides credibility, and this process is documented.

At this stage, there are two types of traditional certificates and electronic certificates. Blockchain certificate is an electronic certificate. Blockchain technology is one of the means to achieve electronic certificate.

Due to the rapid development of Internet technology, a large amount of electronic data has been produced as evidence, which has promoted the development of electronic certificate. The emergence of blockchain technology has promoted the research and attempts to deposit certificates in the field of blockchain. Whether it is traditional depository, electronic depository or blockchain depository, it is inevitable to obtain evidence, notarization and other evidence preservation processes. Different forms of depository are just different carriers at different stages of evidence. It is also the difference of such carriers. The nature of the evidence results in different forms of evidence and credibility.

2.1 Traditional evidence

Traditional depository is notarization. In judicial judgment, the parties are required to submit original evidence to provide a basis for the judgment. In order to meet the three principles of evidence (respectively: objective truth, relevance of evidence, and legality of evidence), the notary office needs to carry out Evidence preservation. Traditional evidence preservation mainly relies on the notary office, and the entire process of obtaining evidence relies on the supervision and testimony of the notary of the notary office. Therefore, in traditional depository, the credibility of the original evidence is supported by the credit of the notary office and the notary.

2.2 Electronic certificate

Electronic certificate refers to the use of information technology to record what happened in the virtual world or the real world through computer technology, so that in the future, it can be proved when and where the event happened.

In traditional evidence, there are two forms of expression, written and oral. However, in the actual operation process, the problem of low credibility of the original evidence caused by the lack of evidence is verbal representation, that is, oral utterance is not supported. This problem also exists with electronic data. Due to the rapid development of the Internet, a large amount of electronic data has been produced as evidence, but electronic data has a large amount, real-time, diverse, easy to destroy, easy to tamper with, easy to forge, and difficult to save. These problems make electronic data impossible It completely represents the original position of both parties, so the electronic data also has a problem similar to "oral evidence".

In addition to the above problems, the Notary Office is also unable to meet the needs of electronic data storage in response time, application environment, cost, personnel, and other aspects when it holds evidence for electronic data. In order to alleviate the above two problems, the electronic deposit certificate platform is gradually formed and developed rapidly, which is an inevitable result of technological development.

2.3 Blockchain deposit certificate

Blockchain certificate is a type of electronic certificate, which refers to the realization and fixation of electronic evidence through blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is one of the technical means to realize electronic certificate. A blockchain-based certification platform does not mean that the data stored on the platform can be used as the basis for judicial decisions. The court will not recognize the credibility of the original evidence because the platform uses the blockchain.

Therefore, before the original evidence has the effect to support the judicial decision, there must still be a process of notarization and preservation of the traditional evidence. The original evidence must be “authentic” and “fidelity” through technical means recognized by the judicial system. The nature and value of evidence.

Comparison of different forms of judicial evidence

The core of evidence lies in whether it has credibility and who provides credibility for evidence. Different forms of judicial evidence, the difference between the evidence carrier and the method of evidence cause the source of credibility of evidence to be different and support, at the same time, its cost and pain points are also different.

3.1 Deposit method

Traditional evidence:

As shown in the figure above, in the judicial system, due to the requirements of the three principles of evidence, the original evidence provided by the parties for the case cannot provide evidence for the judicial system without the evidence preservation of the judicial institution. After its evidence preservation, it is credible evidence. Based on this path of evidence generation, evidence can be divided into three key phases:

Before the preservation of evidence: At this time, the evidence is the original evidence, and it cannot provide support for judicial decisions without preservation;
After the preservation of evidence: After the preservation of the impartiality, the evidence has credibility;
After the case is over: After the case is over, the evidence needs to be archived permanently.

For traditional depositary evidence, at these three different stages, the subjects of evidence preservation are:

Phase 1: No specific preservation subject, usually the parties collected the original evidence after the dispute;
Phase two: Certificate authority
Phase 3: Judiciary

Electronic certificate:

The difference between electronic depository and traditional depository is that the carrier of the original evidence has changed. Most of the original evidence carriers of traditional depository are paper, while the original evidence carrier of electronic depository is the Internet. Judging from the three stages of evidence division, compared with the traditional stage of electronic evidence storage, in the first stage of electronic evidence storage, the subject of original evidence preservation has changed. For electronic depository, the main body of evidence preservation in the first stage is the electronic depository platform, but this original evidence preservation method does not bring credibility to the original evidence, and the evidence still needs to be preserved by a notary office before it can be used as a judicial decision. Basis.

Judging from the three stages of the above evidence, for electronic evidence, the main bodies of evidence preservation in these three stages are:

Phase one: electronic certificate platform
Phase two: Certificate authority
Phase Three: Electronic Certificate Platform, Judiciary

Blockchain deposit certificate:

Although the blockchain technology is immutable, the court will not recognize the credibility of data because of technical support. The data provided is more authentic, but the original evidence still needs to be preserved by the notary office before it can be used as the basis for the trial and judgment.

In the blockchain certificate, the main body of evidence at different stages:

Phase one: Blockchain certificate storage platform
Phase two: Certificate authority
Phase Three: Blockchain Certificate Deposit Platform, Judiciary

3.2 Credibility of evidence

The core of evidence lies in credibility, and different sources of evidence have different sources of credibility at different stages.

Traditional evidence:

Phase 1: No one provides and protects credibility
Phase two: credibility comes from the judiciary
Phase 3: The credibility is guaranteed by the judiciary

Electronic certificate:

Phase 1: No one provides and protects the credibility (Note: The data of the electronic certificate storage platform is easier to forge, and the credibility is even lower than the traditional certificate storage)
Phase two: credibility comes from the judiciary
Phase 3: Public credibility is jointly guaranteed by the judiciary and the electronic certificate deposit platform

Blockchain certificate

Phase 1: Blockchain certificate platform, blockchain technology can provide credibility for original evidence, but this part of credibility is not so strong, and judicial institutions need to do evidence preservation
Phase two: credibility comes from the judiciary
Phase 3: Public credibility is jointly guaranteed by the judiciary and the blockchain certification platform

3.3 Certificate cost

Traditional evidence:

Time and labor costs for parties to collect evidence
Notary Office Notary Staff Costs

Electronic certificate:

Construction and maintenance cost of electronic certificate platform
Notary Office Notary Staff Costs

Blockchain deposit certificate:

Blockchain platform construction and maintenance costs
Notary Office Notary Staff Costs

3.4 Pain points of deposit

Traditional evidence:

Evidence is easily tampered with and difficult to keep;
The oral evidence in the original evidence is not credible.

Electronic certificate

The biggest problem with non-blockchain electronic certificate storage is that the platform cannot self-certify and innocent. Because of some problems with electronic data, the platform cannot guarantee that the original data can be completely stored and cannot be tampered with, deleted, or lost.
The non-blockchain electronic certificate storage platform is based on the Internet, and the centralization of the Internet makes electronic evidence lack credibility and creates a barrier of trust;

Blockchain certificate

Blockchain depository evidence, although in the early stage of evidence preservation, adds transparency and trust to the evidence, it also has problems. Since many blockchain certificates are currently stored only as a hash of data or information, there may be an extreme situation where no party can find the original text and can only provide a hash, but the judge needs to be able to provide evidence The original text can only be judged, so if the original text is improperly stored or only hashes are stored, there will also be problems such as incomplete evidence and breakpoints.

Market expectations for blockchain

4.1 Ex ante prevention

If the event is divided into three stages before, during, and after the event, the enterprise's expectation of the blockchain evidence data is to realize the prevention in advance. Pre-event prevention here refers to the existence of a credible platform that can store data generated by the entire process of the event before the event (such as contract registration in business negotiations), and can save the original when a dispute occurs During the evidence preservation process, platform data is directly provided as evidence for judicial judgment, saving time and labor costs for evidence collection and evidence preservation.

Although the blockchain makes the data more credible than the electronic certificate of other technologies, if the blockchain certificate can play the so-called pre-emptive role, the premise is that the data on this platform has credibility, And it has the characteristics of innocence and innocence to meet the three principles of evidence, but is it true?

4.2 “ Deposit '' and “ proof ''

The public's expectation for the blockchain certificate storage platform is that it can bring double protection of "storage" and "certificate" to the stored data and information. Since electronic data mainly exists in a network environment or is generated in a certain network environment, in addition to the content of the electronic data itself, the process of its generation and existence environment are also very important. It is believed that it is precisely because of the technical characteristics of the blockchain that it can bring special characteristics to the process of generating electronic data and the existence of the environment. Therefore, the blockchain-based certification platform has given the data "self-certified innocence" characteristics And it can be used directly as evidence.

The fact is that the blockchain can indeed play a role in judicial evidence, but it is not as perfect as the public expected. The data of the blockchain certification platform cannot be directly used as evidence. Although there are legal interpretations of blockchain evidence, in the real judicial decision process, the blockchain will still be stored electronically. The original evidence of the proof platform and the realization of a traditional process of evidence preservation can make it truly the evidence supporting judicial decisions.

4.3 Provide credibility

The reason why people can think that the blockchain certificate storage platform can prevent it beforehand is because people think that the platform provides double protection of data "storage" and "certificate", and the reason why this recognition can be generated is because everyone believes The blockchain certificate platform has credibility, and this credibility is supported by this technology. Actually this issue was mentioned in the discussion above, the court will not recognize the credibility of the data because of technical support.

Analysis of the practicality of blockchain technology

Blockchain certificate does not play such an important role as one would expect, but it is not useless. Judicially speaking, the blockchain evidence storage in the evidence collection stage has greatly improved the efficiency of evidence collection and has a very significant role. At this stage, the most accurate positioning of the blockchain certificate platform is the auxiliary system of the judiciary. Some problems can be solved by it, and some problems cannot be solved by it.

5.1 Problems that can be solved

The blockchain judicial evidence storage platform is actually a supplementary system of the judicial system at this stage, which can help prove the authenticity and integrity of the evidence. Blockchain technology provides a full-link transparent and monitorable environment for electronic data. Due to the signature and time stamp technology, the original data is more authentic, the credibility of the original evidence is improved, and the time for evidence preservation of the notary office is extremely great The reduction in efficiency has greatly improved.

However, the integrity of the evidence cannot be guaranteed. At present, the blockchain certificate of deposit is the hash value of the original text. In extreme cases, if only the hash value is lost and the original text is lost, the original evidence will be incomplete.

Supply chain, traceability, electronic contracts and other blockchain application areas mentioned above will generate a lot of data and electronic certificates during the transaction process. When the parties have disputes and need to rise to the judicial level to solve the problems, these electronic certificates are The original evidence. Therefore, other blockchain-based depository platforms that are not judicial depositors have prepared for possible disputes that may occur in the future. When a dispute occurs, after the original evidence of the platform is preserved, it can provide a basis for judicial judgment and save a lot of time and labor costs required for traditional evidence collection.

5.2 Unresolved issues

The most important evidence is the credibility of the evidence. The credibility of the evidence needs to be achieved through the preservation of evidence by the judiciary. The blockchain certificate cannot directly provide its on-chain data as evidence. It is undeniable that in the future, this technology will develop more and more mature, and the evidence stored on the depository platform will become more and more credible, but its credibility cannot always be high enough to provide evidence for judicial decisions, because It means that the blockchain will have the same credibility as the notary office, but the actual blockchain cannot replace the notary office.

There is a centralization problem in the electronic certificate platform implemented by non-blockchain technology, and the blockchain certificate platform still cannot be solved. Regarding the blockchain certificate storage platform, there is currently no perfect operation method that can ensure that the entire judicial certificate storage system is sufficiently decentralized. For the alliance chain nodes, the problem of attack occurs if the decentralization is not enough. From a judicial perspective, too centralization means that there will be blind spots of evidence, which will reduce the authenticity and reliability of the evidence.

Future development of the certificate market

Blockchain depository is a trend, but it does not mean that it can subvert or replace it. At this stage, it is only an auxiliary platform for the judicial system. Evidence is the basis of law. All laws include three major parts: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The major premise is evidence, while the minor premise is laws and regulations. Evidence is not only a simple process of recording facts, but also requires people to explain the evidence, and judges need to interpret and summarize the evidence. So in this process, the factual evidence still needs to be fixed by human work, not simple technology or machine records can solve the problem.

However, a blockchain certificate storage platform can indeed greatly reduce the workload and reduce costs and improve efficiency in many occasions. Although the deployment of the platform itself also costs, compared with its increased efficiency, the cost of the platform seems minimal. This technology, which can reduce costs and increase efficiency, may lead to a new business model in the future and will develop on a large scale. The timing of this large-scale development may be the time when digitalization is widespread. As for when the popularity of digitalization will be realized, it depends on the quality of the data. Only when the quality of the data is very high can the popularity of digitalization be achieved.

At this stage, some companies are deploying blockchain certificate deposits. As far as the current situation is concerned, the layout of blockchain certificate deposits are all relatively influential large enterprises. Because the key to the large-scale application of blockchain certificate is whether the data can be standardized, and only companies with large influence can have obvious advantages in solving this problem. Data standardization means that consensus issues between companies need to be solved, and standardization means consensus compatibility. Just as in the design of cross-chain solutions, it is also necessary to consider the issue of consensus differences among various chains. Each company has its own standards and wants to be a leader in this new field, so they want their own standards to become industry standards.

Therefore, the legal system requires the blockchain certificate deposit platform to be added as a supplementary system. However, the current judicial decision cannot be separated from artificial work. The judicial decision cannot be directly completed through blockchain technology, and this technology cannot subvert or replace anything. . In addition, with the continuous development and progress of data portals and the continuous improvement of data quality, there may be a large number of popularizations in the future. At that time, certificate deposits will also become a large-scale application scenario of the blockchain. However, there is a high probability that there will not be only one company in this scenario. Therefore, the dilemma that companies that need to lay out for the evidence-based scenario is whether to be compatible with or compatible with other people's standards.

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