Beat Weichsler

• As economies are getting more and more interconnected, the importance of the global logistics sector grew accordingly. However, both structural challenges and current events lead to recent supply chain disruptions, exposing the vulnerabilities of the sector. Simultaneously, blockchain has emerged as a key innovative technology with use cases going far beyond the exchange of virtual currencies. This paper aims to analyze how the technology is transforming global logistics and its challenges. Therefore, six use cases, are presented to give an overview of the technological possibilities of blockchain and smart contracts. The analysis combines theoretical approaches from scientific journals and combines them with findings from real-world implementations. The paper finds that the technology can change supply chain design fundamentally, with processes and decisions being automated and power within supply chain structures changing. However, implementations also face technological, environmental, and organizational challenges that need to be solved for wide-spread adoption.