Recently, blockchain technology has been paid great attention to as creating new opportunities in international trade. Parties involved in international trade can now enter into transactions more securely thanks to immutable, distributed ledgers without necessarily relying on a third-party system provider while taking benefits of the improved speed and cost of transactions. Blockchain technology has a decisive impact on the development of electronic transport documents. Pre-existing electronic bills of lading have relied on a system provider of ‘registry’ whose nature has restricted them from being widely used in practice. Blockchain bills of lading are expected to address shortcomings of their preceding generation by allowing anyone to use them and achieving the mechanism of transferring their control in a more similar way as transferring the possession of paper bills of lading. At the same time, however, there are a number of practical or legal issues that might slow down the full application of blockchain bills of lading. To examine potential issues in the use of blockchain bills of lading, this paper aims first to introduce blockchain bills of lading and how they carry out the functions of traditional bills of lading; secondly, identify what challenges and how they may impede the use of blockchain bills of lading; and lastly, investigate whether the proposed legal instruments for e-commerce could actually provide legal recognition for the use of blockchain bills of lading. These questions will determine the future prospect of blockchain bills of lading: they would be able to eventually render paper bills of lading a relic; or they would remain as another type of electronic bill of lading that has to coexist with paper bills of lading.