Introducing Proof of Carbon on Hedera Hashgraph
One of the greatest challenges that have affected Blockchain companies has been within the unpredictable transaction costs of well-known blockchain technology.
The view of “most mature technology”, in the decentralised space, is historically based on Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanisms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. All network fees correlate in direct relation to the increase in network traffic.
This makes on-chain solutions around micropayments and reward mechanisms effectively impossible to work at any level of impact.
- Any ecological or environmental positive impact will be wiped out by a single PoW network transaction and theoretically cause a negative effect.
The fundamental problem is that Proof of Work is terrible for the environment, absolutely awful. For more information have a look at the Bitcoin energy consumption index, as at October 2020 the energy consumption is 22.6% of the UK power consumption.
Bitcoin’s energy consumption relative to countries see reference link
Although this is a known problem and there is a range of solutions that solve the “energy” problem including using Proof of Stake but there is an ICO issue. As many ICOs (initial coin offerings) have used the Ethereum ERC standards as the basis protocol there is a cost, a carbon debt that has already been assigned.
In order for DOVU to deliver a carbon offsetting solution today, we require a different, hybrid approach.
And yes as DOV is an ERC20 token we accept we already have a carbon debt. This needs to be paid, in one way or another.
So what is DOVU doing?
DOVU is introducing an innovative Proof of Carbon mechanism. Every time DOV tokens are rewarded to a user through our API we capture and store this information.
This information is stored publically, anyone can view the intent of the distribution of the assignment of carbon, the DOV token.
DOVU uses the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) backed by Hedera Hashgraph and leverages the work by Trust Enterprises a community-driven open source project.
Using HCS provides an extremely low-cost solution in terms of environmental and economically to add trust to any system, without having to offset the cost to any user.
This provides a scalable solution for adding proof for any transaction which indicates the transfer of carbon using the DOVU API, that any team can start using.
Below is an example of how the assignment of carbon can be proved and viewed, without the requirement to interact directly with a mainnet PoW network.
This process is impossible on PoW networks as the transactional cost would override and almost always exceed the micro-payment benefit to prove the assignment of carbon.
In addition to this Hedera Hashgraph network has the potential to reach a capacity of 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). Examples of pushing the network have been confirmed through AdsDax at 1372 TPS and Quantstamp at 2909 TPS.
During our early testing of a simple architecture using a single serverless proof of carbon node we have exceeded 50 TPS.
The TPS of a single proof of carbon node, using Trust Enterprises.
With that said this is one bit of the greater puzzle, we have a vision and roadmap to enter the DeFi space and to link physical land to unique non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Soil is the future for carbon offsetting
When we hold the image of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere we envision the pollution through the burning of fossil fuels. Thoughts of transportation, cars, and power plants are clear and present.
One of the greater concerns is the emissions of CO2 from soils are around ten times those from fossil fuels.
At DOVU we have been working toward delivering a solution, to incentivise farmers with additional income to consistently pursue high-quality farming practices.
The economic value of the farming industry is worth £120 billion in the UK but the average income for a farmer is £20,000.
Blockchain and NFT
Building a decentralised marketplace for farmers and land-owners to offer carbon certified areas of land verified by soil carbon sequestration.
A buyer may purchase the carbon of a given portion of land this is exchanged for a unique NFT, that includes metadata including exact location.
Every portion of land will have a finite amount of NFTs, in other words, a unique token would be minted for every piece of land. Any value will be stored in escrow and released over the duration of the contract terms.
Upon purchase from a buyer, the farmer will be paid out for ongoing consistent behaviour for environmentally positive behaviour.
Ongoing payment will be hinged on the measurement of positive carbon measurement gain through carbon audits for farms.
If there is a gain in carbon storage, the farmer will receive payment otherwise the value will be returned to the buyer. Without the latter consequence, there will be no accountability.
This will eliminate the carbon double-spend problem and create a fair incentivized carbon marketplace based on real tangible assets.
These solutions will be crucial for large businesses and enterprises for their carbon reduction targets, purchasing allowances for carbon to offset every tonne they emit. Many of these targets have been written into legislation, so they need to be met.
Photo by Avi Theret / Unsplash
Start working with DOVU today
DOVU is building technology to facilitate the offering, validation, and rewarding of capturing carbon value.
So that is where DOVU is moving toward, this is where we are today.
We provide a mechanism to augment your Carbon Offsetting solution, through a REST API, now backed by the trust of Hedera Hashgraph.
If you have a carbon offsetting project in mind we welcome you to join our DOVU Token Grant project, we’ll support you with tokens and marketing.
Otherwise, if you are a developer that wants to work with our community and start building with use we have opened up an Open Source Bounty program, we provide Tokens and Mentorship.
There is a lot of exciting developments coming forward for DOVU for the end of 2020 and 2021, we are looking forward with excitement with the possibilities for the future.