There’s an environmental cost of minting NFTs. An average transaction is around 142 kWh. Which takes up as much the average household electricity consumption for around 5 days!
NFTs are minted using Ethereum, a type of cryptocurrency on the blockchain, a community-built technology that respects a user’s privacy and data.
How it All Works
The Ethereum blockchain works on a system called Proof-of-Work, also known as PoW. PoW is the most widely used system that provides the basis for many cryptos, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Essentially, Proof-of-Work serves as a system to confirm transactions between miners, eliminating the middleman, and allows for mining crypto.
Proof-of-Work requires a massive amount of energy to function.
Just looking at Ethereum, a single transaction is equivalent to the power consumption of an average U.S. household over 6.07 days. If we put this into perspective and think about the sheer amount of Ethereum transactions that occur per day, the altitude of the sheer amount of energy usage is impossible to ignore.
Ethereum’s energy consumption often releases more carbon than multiple small countries and since our planet is rapidly dying, it’s reckless to keep up this practice.
Proof-of-Stake as A Cleaner, Greener, Alternative.
So what is there to do about everyone contributing to this novel technology trend? Is there a way to reduce energy consumption when going through the minting process?
Pawtocol is a green tech company that specializes in decentralized platforms and saving animals. Pawtocol has its own crypto- Universal Pet Income (UPI.) You can trade UPI within the Pawtocol app.
However, crypto that runs on PoW has detrimental effects on the environment. So how would Pawtocol and other green tech companies go around this issue?
That’s when Proof of Stake comes in. Proof-of-Stake is the best alternative to save energy consumption. Instead of mining, Proof-of-Stake works on a system of validation.
On Proof-of-Stake (PoS), instead of running on computational power and using massive energy-intensive computers to mine cryptocurrency, the amount of coins a validator has is equivalent to the user’s mining power.
Proof-of-Stake works on consensus and community power. They can punish the validator that carries out something malicious.
Tezos, another crypto that runs on PoS has compared its annual energy consumption to Ethereum’s and the difference is shocking. The energy consumption of Ethereum differs drastically from that of Tezos. Ethereum, being the one that consumes a massive amount of energy per year.
Proof-of-Stake is still new to creating NFTs and not used like Proof-of-Work. The novel nature of PoS allows for green tech companies to innovate in the blockchain world.
Green Pet NFTs
Pawtocol will use Proof of Stake to validate its own crypto- the previously stated UPI.
Proof-of-Stake serves as the gateway for green tech companies such as Pawtocol to pioneer in the pet industry in a way that applies to ESG principles. ESG- which stands for Environmental Social Governance is a way to evaluate a business on how well it aligns to these ideals.
Proof-of-Stake is the perfect system for green-tech companies to align with ESG principles and work with the Blockchain and NFTs. Using Proof-of-Stake to enable green minting- which leads to green NFT collecting.
Pawtocol plans to use this technology to help pets in real time, by integrating NFTs into the Pawtocol platform. This will be through a biodegradable
Pawtocol Pet tag- that contains a QR code.
After the Pet Tag is scanned, the QR code is paired with the Pawtocol app and allows someone to make an NFT- like an animal shelter.
Once Pawtocol’s NFT’s are created, it can be put into Pawtocol’s NFT marketplace. NFT’s on Pawtocol’s marketplace allow for someone to virtually adopt a pet- essentially financing it until it finds a permanent home.
Proof-of-Stake and its more clean usage of energy consumption can allow Pawtocol to innovate in a way that’s environmentally conscious and benefits pets around the world.
Check out our videos on NFTs!
NFTs as explained by our CEO Karim Quazzani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSRSH2PDhO4
A-list influencer talk about the importance of NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw-LMv3DGAA
