Knowing how blockchain technology can support organizations' strategies is important to avoid making costly investments - and to avoid missing out on valuable opportunities. In this article, Toppo Felin and Karim Lakhani describe the basic distributed digital ledger technology underlying blockchain. Next, the authors describe which types of problems can be solved with blockchain technology. Examples include payment for intellectual property rights, the establishment of historical ownership of tangible products, and the tracing of raw materials and components across the supply chain.