Abstract:  Judicial blockchain, a new type of trust mechanism, has shown unique value in promoting “governance at the source of litigation”, improving trial efficiency, realizing judicial convenience, deepening judicial openness and strengthening supervision and management. As an important link of “smart justice”, judicial blockchain must inherit the humanistic foundation of traditional justice, adhere to the essential attributes of justice and take the realization of digital justice as its goal. Examining the application scenarios of judicial blockchain from the three dimensions of application value, construction goal and necessity, we can find its problems and risks, such as system security risk, possible new litigation burden, “duplication of construction” and “disconnection between construction and use” to a certain extent. Moreover, some application scenarios are not conducive to rights protection; it may conflict with the attribute of passive neutrality of justice; and some applications can be replaced by other trust mechanisms. Only by adhering to the decentralized and open architecture design, focusing on the protection of human rights, regulating and limiting the multi-dimensional applications of judicial blockchain, and aiming at the benign synergy between judicial blockchain and other trust mechanisms, can we finally realize the values and goals of judicial blockchain.

Key words: judicial blockchain, smart justice, smart contract, trust mechanism, digital justice