Regenerative Cryptoeconomics Picking up Steam
Blockchain and SDGs, Polygon going Carbon Negative, Next Earth green Metaverse
It was only a matter of time that the underlying ethos in blockchain about making the world and our economy a better place for all, started to shine with concrete commitments and projects focused on accelerating the use of decentralization to create positive externalities.
Kevin Owocki, founder of Gitcoin, has been a vocal advocate for the adoption of regenerative cryptoeconomics in the blockchain community. At Iomob we too embrace inclusive, democratized and sustainable approaches to and outcomes of decentralization.
In this post I will highlight three recent announcements or initiatives which demonstrate the mainstreaming of regenerative cryptoeconomics within the blockchain community.
- Blockchain and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In an article published earlier this week (in Spanish), they highlighted recent studies which explored how blockchain technology can be applied to accelerate the world’s efforts to achieve the United Nations’s SDGs. The UN SDGs have been adopted by member countries, institutions and many other stakeholders as a guiding framework to influence our path towards a more inclusive, sustainable economy. As you can see there are clear ways blockchain can be used, and in many cases, already being used, to accomplish traction with SDG.
Perhaps to some the most surprising positive impact blockchain can have on the world is advancing our climate objectives. I say surprising to many because there is a common (mis)conception that blockchain is bad for the environment. This comes from selective evidence chosen by some regarding the energy required for bitcoin mining due to their proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Other blokcchains like Ethereum today also use PoW, however Ethereum is shifting to Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022.
2. On the topic of blockchain and climate, I was excited to read this week that Polygon, one of the most important Ethereum sidechain that leverages PoS and is quite fast with low-cost transactions, is going all in on climate action. In this announcement from April 12th, Polygon introduced its Green Manifesto which:
is part of a broader vision for sustainable development that includes the plan to achieve carbon-negative status in 2022. Polygon is also creating a climate offset vertical within its ecosystem and has pledged $20 million to a series of community initiatives, including funding projects that utilize technology to combat climate change.
On the offset side they will be working with a cool emerging climate-focused blockchain project called KlimaDAO which has its own token economy and offers verifiable, traceable carbon offsets. beyond that they will be conducting energy audits to reduce as much as possible their already fairly low PoS blockchain architecture.
3. Drilling down from SDGs to climate and Polygon, the last project I will highlight in this post is Next Earth. It is unlike other metaverses you are familiar with as it has based its virtual land on satellite images of the real Planet Earth. And unlike any other metaverse, they are quite focused on leveraging Next Earth to create positive externalities. One small but important step they took early on was to commit to donating 10% of all revenue from land sales to environmental causes.
As a land owner and token holder, I have already been able to put my money where my mouth is by being able to vote on my favorite charity to donate proceeds to. You can read more about Next Earth’s commitment to the environment in their white paper. There is more to Next Earth than just environmental commitment as they have designed into their token economics model a host of ways for users to not just share in passive revenues that are generated in Next Earth but to co-own and over time, govern the entire network.
While some have yet to realise it, the metaverse is going to transform not just gaming, but our whole global economy and projects like Next Earth can be at the forefront of leveraging regenerative cryptoeconomics to nudge us into a more sustainable, inclusive direction.
About the Author
Boyd Cohen is the CEO and Co-founder of Iomob, a global mobility on demand platform for enterprise. Since obtaining his Ph.D. in strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado in 2001, he spent the past two decades focused on accelerating the path to a low-carbon sustainable economy. This included publishing 3 books, multiple peer reviewed articles, frequently contributing to Fast Company and starting a handful of ventures in the smart cities and sustainability arena. At Iomob, Boyd leads a growing team of mobility and technology experts to deploy the world’s first decentralized Mobility on Demand platform for enterprise. Early clients have spanned multiple continents including Europe, Asia and North America.
