#21: ReFi Green Energy
Guest curator this week, Natacha Rousseau, is a green energy and deep technology enthusiast, and lead content contributor to KlimaDAO.
Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise how we produce, use and store green energy, by decentralising energy grids with verifiable data, through more effective coordination mechanisms, enabling peer-to-peer energy markets, and by providing new forms of economic incentives.
ReFi is starting to flow new investments into green-energy projects in ways that are changing the power dynamics of energy, by making citizens energy prosumers.
This is a huge topic and in this week's briefing we begin to explore the emerging trends and technologies that are driving growth of the tokenised green energy economy.
Energy Supply and Demand
For too long, climate solutions have been dominated by the supply side: Will natural gas be a bridge fuel? What will replace coal plants? Can hydrogen actually power the industry? These are all critical questions, but they only address half the question. We must bring the demand side of our energy system to the heart of the climate change debate.
Engineer and inventor Saul Griffith built a diagram of U.S. energy flows that identified at least a billion fuel-burning machines that need to be replaced with electric devices powered by renewable energy. “These electric purchases need to be the lowest-cost option at every point-of-purchase decision, as soon as possible, in every zip code.”
Green Energy Impacts
In a conversation with the founders of Vittoria Technology, we learn about green energy mini-grids and the opportunities to invest in innovative, for-profit solutions that increase access to renewable energy and impact on people's lives in Africa.
Earth State Markets
Here's the latest intelligence on the tokens and markets that are contributing to growth of the Tokenised Earth Economy.
This week offered no real relief rally for investors after the previous week’s brutal drop. The total crypto market cap has fallen from its peak of $2.89 trillion to $1.22 trillion in about 190 days. That’s a loss of $1.67 trillion! To put that into perspective, only 14 countries have a GDP larger than the size of this economic loss!
The Terra collapse has put cryptocurrencies –particularly Stable Coins, under the spotlight for swift regulation. On a positive note, fears around USDT de-pegging have mostly disappeared as their treasury report released this week shows the stable coin is indeed fully collateralised.
The US dollar is finally weakening a bit which can signal a start of some risk in investing. The fear and greed index is at extreme fear! Buffett famously said: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
📈Reference Markets over the past week
BTC The OG of cryptos | 0% $30210 | Central bankers and financial regulators from 44 countries visited El-Salvador to learn about financial inclusion and banking the unbanked. |
ETH The king of Alts | -1.7% $2022 | At the Eth Shanghai Summit, Vitalik said that the Ethereum merge (POW to POS) is likely to happen in the summer of August. If there are some potential risks, September or October is also possible. Wen merge! |
ATOM Interoperable Blockchain Chain | +17% $11.47 | Watch the uncut stream of the Gateway Conference and hackathon here. Alternatively, read this thread summarising it here. |
OSMO Yield Farming on cosmos | -32.5% $1.54 | A new tool by dexmos shows you how much of a pool is currently unbonding. This allows some deeper on chain analysis. Check it out here! |
CRO Crypto.com | +9.8% $0.19 | Supporting new academic research. They donantes to University of Pennsylvania’s new Crypto Research Laboratory Fund. Learn more about the project here. |
JUNO Smart-contracts on IBC | +41.8% $7 | $JUNO governance scores an average turnout of ~90% with 8 props over the last 60 days. Yes, 90% turnout. The highest known in crypto. |
LUNA Terra ecosystem | -88% $0.0001 | A new proposal looks set to pass with a fork. The old chain will be known as Luna classic. A new community owned Luna will be airdropped to Luna Classic stakers, Luna Classic holders, residual UST holders, and essential app developers of Terra Classic. Vote here! |
📊Impact Markets over the past week
REGEN Ecological State Ledger | +2.3% $0.34 | Have you checked out their external roadmap yet? No? It’s public and up to date. Add it to your map and let’s build it together. |
IXO Internet of Impact | -18% $0.07 | Join the ixo Discord for regular updates, with newly introduced Office Hours! Devs are very busy building, and there are exciting launches coming soon! |
EWT Energy Web Token | +10.5% $2.93 | Missed their announcements the past few weeks? Here’s a biweekly recap! |
BCT Toucan Protocol: Base Carbon Tonnes | +2.3% $2.61 | In Episode 6 of the ReFi Podcast, hosts speak with Rebecca Mqamelo from Zerion about community backed currencies. |
CELO Seigniorage stablecoins collateralised by crypto and natural assets. | -13.2% $1.33 | Read this great thread about ReFiSummer: a trillion-dollar economic opportunity where you can do good and sound informed around the grill this summer. |
DOVU Connecting crypto users with inspiring farm projects across the planet. Moving carbon from the sky into the soil. | +10.5% $0.013 | Hedera HashCast spoke to Matt Smithies of Dovu about the public launch of Blood Moon Mode, public DOV staking and Dovu’s future. Listen in here. |
📉DAO Shares over the past week
ℹ️ Remember that DAO’s with a rebase mechanism should be valued on their treasuries, and market cap increases are a more important metric than token prices, as high yields try to outpace price fluctuations.
KLIMA DAO Carbon Credits as its treasury | -2.2% $6.56 Treasury: 17,394,252 TONNES CO2 | Veggieverse has joined Klima Infinity in order to offset their upcoming mint. To carbon neutral and beyond! |
Olympus DAO The largest DAO built on Ethereum | +18.5% $17 Treasury: $357 million | Olympus is creating a stronger and more diversified Treasury to back $OHM with the help of Fei Protocol. Together, we build. |
Gitcoin DAO GTC - Platform to find meaningful open-source work | +13.9% $2.48 | Catch up on the Workshop Stage that was held at Schelling Point in Amsterdam last month. |
PrimeDAO DeFi Tools DAO | +6.9% $0.35 | Prime Deals is live! It’s a platform where DAOs can easily propose, discuss, ratify agreements and execute the deal on-chain. |
Popcorn DAO | -2% $1.28 | Popcorn was a sponsoring partner of Regens Unite, sponsoring participants for low-carbon travel and local accommodation. |
Market Opportunities
- Get an Airdrop: The Optimism airdrop isn’t over. Here’s a great thread on how to qualify for the airdrops that are still raining down!
- Farm to earn 43% on USDC through Vires Finance.
- Apply to ReFi Spring who are on the search for a Marketing Lead.
Analysis of the Energy Web Token – $EWT
The Energy Web Foundation is on a mission is to accelerate decarbonisation of the global economy through decentralized, customer-centric electricity systems. The Energy Web Chain, economically powered by the $EWT Energy Web Token, is the world’s first enterprise-grade, public, open-source blockchain platform tailored to the sector’s regulatory, operational, and market needs.
Earth State NFTs
Solarpunk is a movement of people who are inspired to create a sustainable environment and future that offers economic freedom and equality. They have created a set of beautiful NFTs depicting what the future could look like after a radical societal shift.
If your rendering of the future has no people in it, what’s the point? Solarpunk aims to bring about the future we know that we’re capable of. One where technology and nature work in balance, where renewable energy powers our cities, community supported agriculture meet the needs of the community and distributed and open source technologies evolve it.
Earth State Technologies
- Smart Grids are a revolution in electricity networks by enabling two-way flows of both electricity and data. Smart metering is often seen as a first step. Smart grids have self-healing capabilities and allow electricity customers to become active participants in the energy economy.
Earth State Change
- Energy Consumers becoming energy prosumers. Brooklyn Microgrid (BMG) enable residential and commercial solar panel owners to become Prosumers in the energy market, by selling their excess energy production to local buyers – in this case, energy-conscious New Yorkers.
"If in the future you find yourself selling your excess solar panel energy to your neighbour via secure blockchain, you'll have one startup's actions on President Street in Brooklyn to thank." - Fast Company
- The topology of power. In the increasingly complex, weather-reliant and fragmented renewable energy market, congestion is becoming a growing problem. Equigy creates a trusted data exchange for energy aggregators to interface with smaller flexible devices, such as home batteries and electric vehicles, to balance electricity flows and create more stable markets.
“The topology of the power grid is simply not fit for the two-way traffic that’s being generated in this new exchange. It’s causing severe congestion in the grids – like traffic jams on the highway.” - Rene Kerkmeester, CEO
- Power stakes. The Energy Web community has grown to be the largest open-source ecosystem focused on decentralised technology and the energy transition. Released earlier this month, ENGIE Energy Access launched the Crowdfund for Solar platform on the Energy Web Chain. This new staking platform allows Energy Web Token holders to support the installation of solar energy infrastructure for communities in Sub-Saharan Africa to get access to affordable and clean energy.
Impact DAOs
FlexiDAO is a cleantech startup based in Amsterdam and Barcelona, providing software solutions and advisory to help companies reach zero-carbon energy goals. They are also affiliate members of the Energy Web Foundation.
They have developed the CFEscore as tool for gathering business intelligence about how much green energy companies are using.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
Earth State Culture
Saul Griffith wrote this surprisingly optimistic, realistic and persuasive book, outlining an action plan for the climate crisis through creating new jobs by electrifying everything.
Earth State Tweet of the Week
Energy Web and @RockyMtnInst are excited to unveil the first draft of our decarbonization approach to electricity in intensive industries. More details are here: https://t.co/g1mNGRkzaF
— Energy Web (@energywebx) May 9, 2022
Earth News
- War is speeding Europe's pivot to renewables. The 27 countries in the European Union got about a fifth of their total energy from renewables in 2020 and had planned to double that share to 40% by 2030. To reduce its dependancy on Russian oil and gas, this target has recently been raised to 45%, and is supported by the EU's Green Deal investments. With energy prices now rocketing, the economic case for renewables and energy independence has reached its tipping point.
- DAO deals in ReFi. This week, Solid World DAO and Toucan announced a partnership to create standard data formats for on-chain carbon markets. Solid World DAO will also de-risk forward markets for Carbon, making them more liquid and enabling DeFi loans. Listen to one of their recent Twitter Spaces for more information on the partnership.
- Green Mobility in India. Earlier this year, Mumbai-based EverSource Capital acquired a majority stake in Lithium Urban Technologies, the largest operator of passenger EVs in India. EverSource closed a $741 million green infrastructure fund. They have since launched their Inaugural Sustainbility Report, including the Eversource Impact Framework.
Earth Gatherings
Earth State Actions
- Watch the pitches from ReFi DAO finalists in the NFT Hackathon. “We had such a great time participating, networking with the other projects involved, and are excited to see how all of these projects progress over the next few months.”
- Participate online in this upcoming conference on systems thinking for carbon capture.
- Understand why accessibility is the major barrier to crypto adoption, and how this can be solved.
Studies have shown that only 33% of adults across the globe are financially literate.
- Subscribe to the new ReFi Podcast with thought leaders in the ReFi space.
🌍 For the Earth!
With charts currently in the red, let's remember that the future is Green, and Web3 is proving to be a critical technological and economic enabler of access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
Join the weekly Earth State Twitter Space every Tuesday at 15:00 UTC, where we discuss what's moving in ReFi and the Tokenised Earth Economy.
This article is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. For tax advice talk to your accountant. DYOR – Do your own research.