It takes a lot of energy and resources to mine Bitcoin. The crypto space has known that for more than a decade.
During those years Bitcoin miners have sought out the cheapest electricity in the world to boost profits and productivity of their massive servers and mining rigs.
And so it went through the middle of May 2021, until Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent this tweet.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
What made this tweet significant was that just a few weeks before, Musk announced that Tesla would start accepting Bitcoin as payment for his company’s electric vehicles to consumers.
While his tweet slammed those payment plans in reverse, it also sparked a global discussion regarding the power needs of Bitcoin and Ether mining and the impact of that practice on the environment.
Something needs to be done to address crypto’s sustainability issues and one company has a vision to do that. Brokoli.network was created in April of this year. It’s the first green decentralized finance (DeFi) project at scale, according to its Chief Marketing Officer, Monika Poskute.
In her exclusive interview with DailyCoin, she explained:
“What we are trying to do is make decentralized finance climate-positive. We know that Ethereum and Bitcoin networks consume tremendous amounts of energy. When you combine both the networks and what they consume, it’s equivalent to the energy consumed by the country of Turkey for the same time period. The numbers are huge.” Poskute has been a marketing leader for years and has successfully managed branding and corporate sustainability programs for global companies.
She’s excited about Brokoli because she believes crypto is nearing a point of crisis, potentially affecting all of us. Poskute says that if crypto, with all its energy use and mining practices, was adopted globally right now, the earth would be irreparably damaged.
That’s why she says she’s committed to Brokoli and its green solution to crypto’s energy problem.
“The goal is to offset the existing negative climate impact, because every crypto transaction that is happening everyday does not allow us to progress further due to the way the blockchain is built. To reverse that, we are onboarding projects that work with tree planting and forest conservation, e-waste management, and renewable energy projects.
Once people use our products, we are going to collect so-called green funds [energy credits] and 90% of those funds are going to go toward those sustainable, eco-friendly projects,” said Poskute.
At the surface layer, crypto users on the Brokoli DeFi platform will experience the same seamless, secure, and fast financial services and crypto trading they’ve come to expect from blockchain-based exchanges.
“The only thing different is that we’re introducing an environmentally friendly, green layer in between all of that. That green process helps offset the damage they are doing with their own transaction,” she said.
The team is also gearing up for Brokoli’s initial decentralized offering (IDO), which Poskute says will launch on three separate sites simultaneously.
“It will happen on the number one launchpad, DAO Maker. The second location will be our own website. The third location will be for our initial exchange offering and that will occur on the gate.io exchange - the IDO is going to happen there as well,” Poskute said.
The IDO is merely the next step in the process, not a final destination. Once they can see beyond the IDO, Poskute says they’ll focus on NFTs to help gamify positive climate impact.
“Where NFTs come in is that users will be able to create positive climate impact throughout our platform. Using our products you will plant real trees through our real-world partners such as Ripple Africa, which are funded by our users.
To help users see their impact, we digitize those trees and you can grow your own digital forest based on the real-world trees you’ve planted. It’s not just something nice to see on your screen, you can grow it, and sell it to other users on the platform.” There might be skeptics who claim that Brokoli’s “green vision” is little more than a marketing gimmick to differentiate it in a crowded field of DeFi options. According to Poskute, the Brokoli team has a real commitment to fight and reverse climate change.
“The ultimate goal of the entire team is to create a green blockchain ecosystem. We want all of the products that are currently available in the crypto space to have an alternative green version.
It’s not just going to be a DEX aggregator, not just NFTs. It will be yield farming, investments, borrowing and so on. Whatever you’re using in the industry, Brokoli will have that and it will have that green layer built into it.”
On The Flipside
- Some maintain that the negative environmental impact of cryptocurrency is overblown.
- The ARK Invest report from June 2021 titled Debunking Common Bitcoin Myths presents fact-based research that refutes any negative eco-impact from crypto mining.
Watch the full interview here:
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