Heard of blockchain but not quite clear about what it is? Here is a down and dirty overview that will bring you up to speed in a flash about how it works, why it’s important, and how it will flip the energy industry on its head.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of blockchain, it’s a distributed database (sometimes called a ledger), comprised of many connected computers, that follows a particular set of governing rules and deploys advanced cryptography to track data in such a way that the data can’t be changed retroactively.