Walmart has long been known as a leader in supply chain management. However, its prowess could not insulate it from a problem plaguing the transportation industry for decades: vast data discrepancies in the invoice and payment process for freight carriers, which required costly reconciliation efforts and caused long payment delays. Then Walmart Canada pioneered a solution: It employed blockchain, a distributed-ledger technology, to create an automated system for managing invoices from and payments to its 70 third-party freight carriers.