7 ms·

Somebody needs to invent a coin that works on proof-of-carbon-emission-reductions, or proof-of-global-poverty-reduction and do some real good for the world.

c1sc0 5y ago
That’s actually pretty simple if you can live with centralization ... just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased. Then again ... what’s the point of putting that on a blockchain?
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > Then again ... what’s the point of putting that on a blockchain? Marketing. :p > That’s actually pretty simple if you can live with centralization ... just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased. We have this today, but "just certify" does a lot of work here. It's really hard to certify CO2 offsets in many cases (e.g., it's tough to verify that the trees someone plants weren't going to be planted anyway or that they will live to their expected potential and not get burned down prematurely).
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Whenever you plant a tree, do the following. 1. Take a picture of the tree 2. Burn the tree down. 3. Create NFT of the picture of the tree burning down. 4. Use the NFT of the picture of the tree to certify the CO2 offset. Inspiration from: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56335948 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56335948
    - StavrosK 5y ago
      I don't understand, the offset of a burnt tree is 0. I get that it's a joke, I just don't understand what the joke is.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Lets change the order of things then. 1. Take a picture of the tree 2. Create NFT of the picture of the tree. 3. Use the NFT of the picture of the tree to certify the CO2 offset. 4. Burn down the tree. -------- Is it more obvious with this ordering? The NFT proves nothing. It doesn't matter when you burn (or otherwise damage) the tree. You have an NFT stating a carbon offset that is completely fake. I'm just making fun of the idea that NFTs prove... anything useful... in these circumstances. Its the same thing as people who want to use blockchain to certify supply chains or whatever. The "Blockchain technology" doesn't do anything aside from provide marketing points.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased We have something like this in France. Energy providers (for example EDF, Electricité De France) must buy a certain number of CEE (Certificats d'Economie d'Energie, I think the concept is white certificates) every year, or face heavy fines (big enough that buying certificates is a big part of their activities). As an example: let's say I want to change my window to have more isolation, which will reduce my energy consumption. This can produce a CEE, that I can "sell" to EDF, which will help financing the change.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  I found a coin claiming to do this - tradeable carbon credits, where you could extinguish a coin to offset carbon. It seemed like it had no traction. You could make carbon-neutral coin that automatically offsets its own emissions by buying and extinguishing carbon offsets for every transaction. Obviously this would be cost-prohibitive for Bitcoin, but seems practical for less energy-intensive cryptos. I’m surprised nobody has done this (at least, I didn’t find it by googling). I think you could make billions of dollars off this because of the current furor over environment impact of cryptos. And it would actually be good for the world.
arebop 5y ago
This defeats the purpose of disincentivizing adversaries who want to steal coins from other participants. The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. You can't redirect those resources into "doing some real good in the world" the best you can do is to allocate resources directly to your good cause rather than trying to magically get the good done for free.
- zepto 5y ago
  > The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. In the case of PoS or PoW it is spent to establish global consensus. It’s certainly waste if there is no other productive work is done by the network that wouldn’t have been done without it.
- mondoveneziano 5y ago
  > The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. I still would like everyone to understand how proof-of-work really works, I don't think many people do. The current Bitcoin hash rate means that all those miners are currently calculating on the order of 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 hashes per second. Of those, in Bitcoin only around 6 per hour have any actual effect. Six. Those are the ones that met the arbitrary target. The other 10^20 did not do any actual work, meaning that none of them did bring any miner, not even the same miner, the same chip, closer to the "answer". In that sense, they are wasted. Instead, it is literally a lottery. The difficulty is adjusted such that if you try 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 random numbers per second, 6 per hour will randomly hit the target. It's more "raffling" that "mining".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jtsiskin 5y ago
    I’m not sure I see what you’re saying. The “arbitrary target” is so high because of all the mining. If there were less miners, the difficult would decrease, and then it would be easier for a malicious party to find one of those 6 lottery tickets.
dheera 5y ago
Set up a coin such that every time it goes up, some amount of reserve is sold, and 100% of profits donated to carbon reduction projects. Give away free electric cars. Plant trees. Whatever. Then hype up the coin. Make people bid it up endlessly just like they do other coins. Post lots of #moon #hodl crap on Twitter. Get the flock of sheep moving. Sell hype, use the proceeds for CO2 reduction.
- zepto 5y ago
  According to Bitcoiners Bitcoin is green, so you you could use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin. https://bitcoinisgreen.org/ https://bitcoinisgreen.org/
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    "THE BITCOIN NETWORK FUNCTIONS AS A UNIQUE ENERGY BUYER THAT COULD ENABLE SOCIETY TO DEPLOY SUBSTANTIALLY MORE SOLAR AND WIND GENERATION CAPACITY. THIS DEPLOYMENT, ALONG WITH ENERGY STORAGE, AIMS TO FACILITATE THE TRANSITION TO A CLEANER AND MORE RESILIENT ELECTRICITY GRID.” I used to get paid to write stuff like this.
  - dheera 5y ago
    I mean, personally, I do own some cryptocurrency right now, if it moons enough in the near future I would be very likely to use the proceeds to switch to an electric vehicle. If it moons even higher I could move to a more energy-efficient apartment with double-paned glass and all.
    - zepto 5y ago
      A coal company executive installing double pane windows doesn’t make coal green.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jefftk 5y ago
> proof-of-carbon-emission-reductions That one is fun! First, I credibly claim to have plans to release ridiculous quantities of CO2, and then you negotiate with me to convince me not to. Then we can split the coins.
- zepto 5y ago
  It’s like proof of stake - you have to prove you have a track record of producing the emissions.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Burn tires for a year then reap the reductions the next.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Sure - that’s pretty much how it works. If you own and can defend a jurisdiction where you can do that, other people will likely pay or trade things with you to stop.
      - vkou 5y ago
        A cheaper way to deal with you is to embargo/tariff your exports, until you come back to the negotiating table, hat in hand.
        mPReDiToR 5y ago
        Not sure that always works. Hang on, Fidel Castro is on the other line.
        vkou 5y ago
        That was a life-or-death political issue for the communist party of Cuba (USSR subsidies also mitigated some of the damage the embargo caused). This is just a question of money - which is far more tractable.
newsclues 5y ago
A smart bike that prints coins based on the energy put into the bike.
- deepserket 5y ago
  i factory full of those bikes with motors to spin the wheels and gps spoofing
imtringued 5y ago
Cryptocurrencies create a fictional kingdom that is being defended by an army of miners. The laws of the kingdom only apply inside the kingdom.
sschueller 5y ago
A tree with a distributed ledger. The one who plants the most trees wins.
- inopinatus 5y ago
  So, a Merkle tree.
cageface 5y ago
This is one of the themes of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Ministry for the Future" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future
lostmsu 5y ago
When the ultimate goal of zero emissions will be achieved, we will finally get a world where nobody is breathing :-D
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gre 5y ago
How about this: companies give out coins in exchange for useful labor contributions in the form of answering calls, stocking shelves, writing code...
- edoceo 5y ago
  That'll never work :/
jasonlaramburu 5y ago
How do you cheaply and effectively verify that the real world work (sequestering carbon, fighting poverty) actually happened?
ricopags 5y ago
Not sure what the "Rule 34" for crypto is, but: https://www.regen.network/ https://www.regen.network/
1-more 5y ago
Folding@home and SETI@home and The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search already existed and could have had big nerds turn them into robot money somehow but naahhhhh. Of course not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_...

c1sc0 5y ago

That’s actually pretty simple if you can live with centralization ... just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased. Then again ... what’s the point of putting that on a blockchain?

throwaway894345 5y ago
> Then again ... what’s the point of putting that on a blockchain? Marketing. :p > That’s actually pretty simple if you can live with centralization ... just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased. We have this today, but "just certify" does a lot of work here. It's really hard to certify CO2 offsets in many cases (e.g., it's tough to verify that the trees someone plants weren't going to be planted anyway or that they will live to their expected potential and not get burned down prematurely).
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Whenever you plant a tree, do the following. 1. Take a picture of the tree 2. Burn the tree down. 3. Create NFT of the picture of the tree burning down. 4. Use the NFT of the picture of the tree to certify the CO2 offset. Inspiration from: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56335948 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56335948
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    I don't understand, the offset of a burnt tree is 0. I get that it's a joke, I just don't understand what the joke is.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Lets change the order of things then. 1. Take a picture of the tree 2. Create NFT of the picture of the tree. 3. Use the NFT of the picture of the tree to certify the CO2 offset. 4. Burn down the tree. -------- Is it more obvious with this ordering? The NFT proves nothing. It doesn't matter when you burn (or otherwise damage) the tree. You have an NFT stating a carbon offset that is completely fake. I'm just making fun of the idea that NFTs prove... anything useful... in these circumstances. Its the same thing as people who want to use blockchain to certify supply chains or whatever. The "Blockchain technology" doesn't do anything aside from provide marketing points.
Zababa 5y ago
> just certify CO2 offsets for example for each coin purchased We have something like this in France. Energy providers (for example EDF, Electricité De France) must buy a certain number of CEE (Certificats d'Economie d'Energie, I think the concept is white certificates) every year, or face heavy fines (big enough that buying certificates is a big part of their activities). As an example: let's say I want to change my window to have more isolation, which will reduce my energy consumption. This can produce a CEE, that I can "sell" to EDF, which will help financing the change.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
I found a coin claiming to do this - tradeable carbon credits, where you could extinguish a coin to offset carbon. It seemed like it had no traction. You could make carbon-neutral coin that automatically offsets its own emissions by buying and extinguishing carbon offsets for every transaction. Obviously this would be cost-prohibitive for Bitcoin, but seems practical for less energy-intensive cryptos. I’m surprised nobody has done this (at least, I didn’t find it by googling). I think you could make billions of dollars off this because of the current furor over environment impact of cryptos. And it would actually be good for the world.

arebop 5y ago

This defeats the purpose of disincentivizing adversaries who want to steal coins from other participants. The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. You can't redirect those resources into "doing some real good in the world" the best you can do is to allocate resources directly to your good cause rather than trying to magically get the good done for free.

zepto 5y ago
> The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. In the case of PoS or PoW it is spent to establish global consensus. It’s certainly waste if there is no other productive work is done by the network that wouldn’t have been done without it.
mondoveneziano 5y ago
> The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. I still would like everyone to understand how proof-of-work really works, I don't think many people do. The current Bitcoin hash rate means that all those miners are currently calculating on the order of 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 hashes per second. Of those, in Bitcoin only around 6 per hour have any actual effect. Six. Those are the ones that met the arbitrary target. The other 10^20 did not do any actual work, meaning that none of them did bring any miner, not even the same miner, the same chip, closer to the "answer". In that sense, they are wasted. Instead, it is literally a lottery. The difficulty is adjusted such that if you try 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 random numbers per second, 6 per hour will randomly hit the target. It's more "raffling" that "mining".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jtsiskin 5y ago
  I’m not sure I see what you’re saying. The “arbitrary target” is so high because of all the mining. If there were less miners, the difficult would decrease, and then it would be easier for a malicious party to find one of those 6 lottery tickets.

dheera 5y ago

Set up a coin such that every time it goes up, some amount of reserve is sold, and 100% of profits donated to carbon reduction projects. Give away free electric cars. Plant trees. Whatever. Then hype up the coin. Make people bid it up endlessly just like they do other coins. Post lots of #moon #hodl crap on Twitter. Get the flock of sheep moving. Sell hype, use the proceeds for CO2 reduction.

zepto 5y ago
According to Bitcoiners Bitcoin is green, so you you could use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin. https://bitcoinisgreen.org/ https://bitcoinisgreen.org/
- prionassembly 5y ago
  "THE BITCOIN NETWORK FUNCTIONS AS A UNIQUE ENERGY BUYER THAT COULD ENABLE SOCIETY TO DEPLOY SUBSTANTIALLY MORE SOLAR AND WIND GENERATION CAPACITY. THIS DEPLOYMENT, ALONG WITH ENERGY STORAGE, AIMS TO FACILITATE THE TRANSITION TO A CLEANER AND MORE RESILIENT ELECTRICITY GRID.” I used to get paid to write stuff like this.
- dheera 5y ago
  I mean, personally, I do own some cryptocurrency right now, if it moons enough in the near future I would be very likely to use the proceeds to switch to an electric vehicle. If it moons even higher I could move to a more energy-efficient apartment with double-paned glass and all.
  - zepto 5y ago
    A coal company executive installing double pane windows doesn’t make coal green.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jefftk 5y ago

> proof-of-carbon-emission-reductions That one is fun! First, I credibly claim to have plans to release ridiculous quantities of CO2, and then you negotiate with me to convince me not to. Then we can split the coins.

zepto 5y ago
It’s like proof of stake - you have to prove you have a track record of producing the emissions.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Burn tires for a year then reap the reductions the next.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Sure - that’s pretty much how it works. If you own and can defend a jurisdiction where you can do that, other people will likely pay or trade things with you to stop.
    - vkou 5y ago
      A cheaper way to deal with you is to embargo/tariff your exports, until you come back to the negotiating table, hat in hand.
      - mPReDiToR 5y ago
        Not sure that always works. Hang on, Fidel Castro is on the other line.
        vkou 5y ago
        That was a life-or-death political issue for the communist party of Cuba (USSR subsidies also mitigated some of the damage the embargo caused). This is just a question of money - which is far more tractable.

newsclues 5y ago

A smart bike that prints coins based on the energy put into the bike.

deepserket 5y ago
i factory full of those bikes with motors to spin the wheels and gps spoofing

imtringued 5y ago

Cryptocurrencies create a fictional kingdom that is being defended by an army of miners. The laws of the kingdom only apply inside the kingdom.

sschueller 5y ago

A tree with a distributed ledger. The one who plants the most trees wins.

inopinatus 5y ago
So, a Merkle tree.

cageface 5y ago

This is one of the themes of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Ministry for the Future" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

lostmsu 5y ago

When the ultimate goal of zero emissions will be achieved, we will finally get a world where nobody is breathing :-D

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gre 5y ago

How about this: companies give out coins in exchange for useful labor contributions in the form of answering calls, stocking shelves, writing code...

edoceo 5y ago
That'll never work :/

jasonlaramburu 5y ago

How do you cheaply and effectively verify that the real world work (sequestering carbon, fighting poverty) actually happened?

ricopags 5y ago

Not sure what the "Rule 34" for crypto is, but: https://www.regen.network/ https://www.regen.network/

1-more 5y ago

Folding@home and SETI@home and The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search already existed and could have had big nerds turn them into robot money somehow but naahhhhh. Of course not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_...