First Climate-Positive Bitcoin Aims To Wipe Out The Harmful Effects Of Mining
Image via Mogo
Cryptocurrency has great potential, and its exponential growth doesn’t appear to indicate any plans for it slowing down. However, there have been environmental concerns surrounding its mining.
Research from Digiconomist shows that in one year, Bitcoin generates electronic waste “comparable to the small IT equipment waste produced by a country such as the Netherlands.” This is thanks to around 272g of e-waste on average per transaction. And, famously, Elon Musk has been very outspoken on its effects on the climate.
If we want crypto to stick around and not swallow the Earth and its climate whole in the process, there obviously needs to be some sort of change. After all, even prior to crypto’s entrance into the mainstream this year, we were already struggling to reduce global emissions to a sustainable level.
And here comes Mogo, a digital payments and fintech company. It has just launched a “green” bitcoin, which it claims is the world’s first-ever climate-positive one.
Every bitcoin bought through the Mogo platform will prompt the company to plant “enough trees to completely offset the CO2 emissions produced by mining that bitcoin—and then some.”
“Bitcoin is the best-performing asset class of the past decade with massive inflows of capital daily,” David Feller, CEO of Mogo, shares in a statement. “But the tremendous potential of bitcoin is hindered by its environmental impact; the emissions created by mining are among the greatest problems facing [it] today. By launching ‘green’ bitcoin, we’ve made buying bitcoin good for the planet.”
In partnership with Veritree, which partners with reforestation groups to oversee projects globally; and Eden Reforestation Projects; transactions will see trees planted in Madagascar, Indonesia, and Kenya.
Eden Reforestation Projects will take a non-disruptive approach, only planting trees native to each country. While this will benefit the surrounding environment and can preserve wildlife, it’ll also help to provide jobs to support the local community.
“In essence, we pay Veritree for a tree on your behalf, they fund a specific project, and your tree gets planted,” Mogo explains on its website. All this is, of course, recorded in the blockchain, so everyone involved can track every transaction and its associated tree.
So, as the company writes, every time someone buys a coffee, a tree is planted. That tree will “suck” about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air, helping to save the Earth a little bit at a time.
In addition to turning all bitcoin bought on its platform climate-positive, Mogo has also stated that it will be offsetting the footprint of its own corporate investment in the currency.
$BTC…wait for it…waaaait for it………but make it climate positive. 💚
— MOGO (@mogomoney) October 21, 2021
We're planting carbon-sucking trees to offset the CO2 emitted from bitcoin mining. It's Canada's greenest way to buy bitcoin (yeah, we said it!!).
Check it out: https://t.co/Cg0SSFTeK5 pic.twitter.com/M7otvu5u1j
[via Mogo, image via Mogo]
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