Powering crypto holdings with verified renewables demonstrated
The Crypto Climate Accord has reported demonstrations of decarbonisation on the demand side of the crypto market.
The demonstrations are by the UK crypto wallet Zumo and Australian crypto brokerage firm Caleb & Brown, which are reported to have utilised Energy Web’s Zero to facilitate purchases of digitised energy attribute certificates equal to the estimated energy use associated with their respective customers’ crypto holdings and are able to prove this renewables procurement ‘on-chain’.
As these companies do not know what, if any, percentage of their crypto holdings and associated transactions use renewably-powered mining, these showcases provide an example of how crypto wallets, exchanges, applications, investors and holders can power their respective crypto supplies with renewables.
“It’s great to see companies like Zumo and C&B pursuing crypto-decarbonisation,” said Marc Johnson, Sr. Associate at RMI, one of the Accord’s co-founders.
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Green cryptocurrency mining demonstrated
Energy Web, RMI, AIR partner on green blockchain action
“We hope our green crypto accounting guidance helps them and many others establish their decarbonisation targets.”
The showcases follow an earlier demonstration on the supply side of the crypto market with Filecoin storage providers utilising EW Zero to source renewable power and use proof of green Filecoin mining to boost their ranking in the Filecoin reputation system.
Crypto energy use methodologies
Zumo’s interest was initiated when it launched research to investigate methodologies for estimating the energy use associated with the Bitcoin on the Zumo wallet as part of its net zero strategy development.
The approach adopted, a ‘share of the Bitcoin network’ model, was launched in the Zero Hero pilot to match the electricity consumption related to Bitcoin purchases on Zumo with energy attribute certificates.
In other words, Zumo users who purchase Bitcoin during the pilot period will get proof that their Bitcoin’s power consumption is matched with 100% verified renewable energy, with the proof of this renewable energy procurement anchored on the EW Chain.
Caleb & Brown on the other hand, applied the ‘mined since genesis’ methodology to account for and procure the energy attribute certificates needed to cover the energy use associated with three Bitcoins for a Darwin art gallery.
In this methodology, one of those developed by Zumo, the electricity consumption of the mining is based on the aggregated electricity use since the Bitcoin genesis block and the total Bitcoin mined and circulated.
Kirsteen Harrison, Zumo Environmental and Sustainability Adviser, says that being able to pilot and share these methodologies with peers in the industry is “a transparent, open source way to advance the decarbonisation discussion”.
She adds: “Meaningful progress calls for collective action.”
Crypto decarbonisation roadmap
The Crypto Climate Accord states the Zumo and C&B showcase as an initial roadmap to decarbonise crypto transactions and holdings.
These are first, to use emerging good industry practices to estimate the energy use of crypto holdings and/or transactions.
Second, to procure digitised energy attribute certificates using tools like Zero to give customers proof of sourcing renewables at an amount equal to the estimated electricity use of the crypto supplies.
Third, to use this proof of renewables sourcing for crypto supplies to support more transparent reporting around progress toward sustainability goals.
Further insights on the business benefits of guaranteeing and proving use of renewable energy sourcing to crypto platform users are expected from Zumo’s Zero Hero pilot.
