The Future Is a Shared Canvas - Join the quest to paint a Carbon-free Future with Blocks.garden
🚀 Launching today, the platform to #MakeCryptoGreen is presented by Zero Labs and a growing list of 22 partners from the Ethereum Community, Regenerative Finance (ReFi) and Public Goods movements: Protocol Labs, Filecoin, Filecoin Green and it’s team Alan Ransil and Marc Johnson, Nick Johnson from ENS, Web3Auth, Toucan, KlimaDao, Helios, Fracton Ventures, Carbonbase, Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, Cred Protocol, Neutral Protocol, Philand.xyz, Tres Cool, Public Nouns, Deimos, Zumo, FutureQuest and Ben West from Gitcoin
🔑 | TL;DR
- 🎯 Blocks.garden is a platform to decarbonize blockchains’ historical energy consumption by using fun and community competition, beginning with Ethereum
- 💡🖼 Inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage, Blocks.garden is a giant canvas of 15+ million pixels that each represent a block from Ethereum’s proof of work (PoW) history.
- ⚡♻️ When someone buys and claims pixels on the canvas to display their brand, content, or imagery, they simultaneously decarbonize the corresponding Ethereum blocks with a tokenized Renewable Energy Certificate.
- 💚 By coordinating an industry to take meaningful climate action and repair its historical emissions, the Ethereum community can finally start showing the world that crypto can be a force for good
- 🚀 Today we launch our MVP called “Day 1 — The Merge”, a special selection of 5882 Ethereum blocks representing the 24 hours on Ethereum that preceded the The Merge
Blocks garden is presented by Zero Labs and a growing list of 22 partners from the Ethereum, ReFi, and public goods communities. explore who they are 👇
Our partners have already used Blocks.garden to decarbonize 3.35 GWh (463 US homes electricity for one year), equivalent to 2,378 metric tons of CO2. — Follow the updated progress in the blocks.garden documentation
❝ Blocks.garden is a radical new path to climate action. It makes it automatic, programmatically coupling the renewable energy certificate, packaging it with an engaging experience that also enables the wider community to participate. The platform can have positive externalities incentivizing more projects to consider and tackle their historical emissions ❞
Alan Ransil, Filecoin Green Project Lead
📊 | Progress ( as of 2022.12.19 )
🔥 | The Problem
1. Ethereum’s historical emissions
Ethereum emitted 18.1 million tons of CO2 during its Proof of Work (PoW) era before “The Merge” upgrade reduced its energy consumption 99.988%. This historical electricity use will cost hundreds of millions to decarbonize.
2. Inaction of world leaders and a 2030 climate deadline
The UN warns that emissions must drop 45% by 2030 and that we must act “now or never.” But the UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2019 determined that after 27 years of climate summits, climate policy is not moving markets fast enough and voluntary action is critical to accelerate the investments necessary to decarbonize the global economy. The world is now in a plan-B scenario, where citizens and organizations across the world must act knowing that policy action alone will not keep global warming to under 1.5°C..
3. Crypto’s poor reputation
Crypto inherited Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos, but it’s been taken too far and the public is sick of it. From carbon emissions to billion dollar scams, hacks and meltdowns, the industry is instigating kneejerk regulation that could stifle humanity’s access to this invaluable technology. This industry must grow out of its adolescent phase and start contributing more value to society. The first step is fixing problems this industry has contributed to create rather than solve.
🎉 | The solution: small, approachable, fun steps
Inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage, Blocks.garden is a massive internet billboard divided into 15.5m pixels that each represent a block of Ethereum’s pre-merge history. When Ethereum community members buy pixels on the canvas to display their logos, brands, artwork, ENS names, etc., then Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) — the globally standardized market instrument to transact clean energy — are purchased in the background that decarbonize the corresponding Ethereum blocks.
The canvas blocks are also tradeable on a secondary market, speeding up Ethereum’s decarbonization by attracting speculators in addition to do-gooders.
- The ownership of the pixels on the canvas is established via NFTs called Block-NFTs.
- Each pixel is also paired with a Green-NFT which proves the corresponding Ethereum block’s energy usage was decarbonized via a Renewable Energy Certificate (with more decarbonization options provided by our partners to come).
- Each Green-NFT links to its respective user-friendly “Green-Proof”, which visualizes the owner’s climate impact and contains the data to verify the decarbonization credit independently.
- We designed a Green Hero Reputation Score and public leaderboard that ranks participants’ stewardship of the Ethereum public good. (In the future, other protocols may use this score to identify good actors and grant them additional rights.)
The result: The Ethereum community competes to decarbonize its legacy electricity use by showing off contributions on a giant billboard of community logos, sigils, NFT artwork, and memes. LOTS of memes.
(For reference, see Reddit’s “r/Place”, another piece of internet history which used this concept)
By creating new demand today that will help accelerate the decarbonization of the electric grid and of the global economy — the community can show the world that crypto can be a powerful force for good. 💪💚
Who are the 23+ Green Heroes launching Blocks.garden?
Blocks.garden is started by Zero Labs and launched by this growing list of partners
Launch partners can be grouped in 3 main groups: ReFi, Public Goods and Web3Adoptions & dapps.
1 | 🌿 ReFi Partners
Environmental action is seeing its fastest renaissance in decades thanks to a crypto-based movement called ReFi, or Regenerative Finance. ReFi creates brand new crypto-economic systems that bring positive externalities to communities, wildlife, climate, and the world.
in this Cluster we find many projects who can contribute decarbonization strategies beyond Renewable Energy Certificates.
- Zero Labs
- Filecoin Green, along with Alan Ransil and Marc Johnson
- Helios
- Toucan Protocol
- Neutral Protocol
- Klima DAO
- Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol
- CarbonBase
- Cred Protocol / Project Ark
- Ben West form Gitcoin
- Tres Cool
- FutureQuest
❝ …the blocks.garden effort is about taking responsibility for the impact we’ve had on the world, and showing that Web3 tools are ideal for coordinating at a global scale ❞
- Toucan Protocol
2 | 👐 Public Goods partners
Digital public goods projects that serve everyone. A regeneration of nonstate and noncorporate infrastructure; the other side of crypto that isn’t about the money.
Some projects and people from the ReFi Cluster are present in this one too because they recognize that the environment is a public good or they work on supporting public goods projects.
The partners exclusively in the Public Goods cluster are
❝ I’m proud to be a part of this process along with similar efforts underway such as the Ethereum Climate Platform. We are all in this together and the collaboration and coordination in this space gives me hope that meaningful change is possible. ❞
- Ben West — Gitcoin cause round lead
3 | 💎 Web3 Adoption and dApps
These are companies that in one way or another are working on onboarding users to crypto. This can be considered a form of public good.
❝ we hope that more companies around the world can join Blocks.garden to work towards a more sustainable future and demonstrate the potential for blockchain as a global, transparent, and accountable coordination layer for public goods. ❞
- Leonard Tan — Co-founder & CTO Web3Auth.io
Read about all partners, who they are, and quotes about why they decided to join the Blocks.garden 👉 here 👈
The MVP Launch: Day 1 — The Merge
Every journey starts with the first step. Today, we launch our platform MVP: a single-day canvas of 5,883 blocks from Ethereum’s most important moment since its genesis: the final 24 hours before The Merge.
Why “Day 1”?
Since our mission begins with the most recent (and biggest) energy consumption first, we decided to call it Day 1. When the full platform is released, the canvas will display all seven years of Ethereum’s PoW history — from the genesis block to The Merge (2,605 days!)
Certain dates hold historical significance to the Ethereum community — The DAO hack, the launch of ENS or Crypto Punks, the Genesis block — and the canvas on these days will naturally attract more interest. The Merge is one of the most significant days of all, making “Day 1” blocks among the rarest real estate on the platform.
More details:
- Day 1 has 5,883 Blocks for a total of 82.560 MWh
- Day 1 starts at block 15,531,512 (Etherscan) and ends at “Merge” block 15,537,393 (Etherscan)
- 🎁 We gifted the final “Merge” block to Vitalik
Limitations
The MVP has scaled back functionality before the full Blocks.garden platform is released.
- For now, blocks are minted and sold via OpenSea smart contracts rather than custom Blocks.garden contracts. However the blocks are directly accessible from the canvas UI.
- The “Green NFTs” that decarbonize Ethereum blocks are being purchased by our team and then assigned to the Green Hero in batches
Join the mission today
(And secure prime real estate before the rest of the crowd)
The world will take notice when, out of all industries, crypto becomes the first to decarbonize its history. Blocks.garden will be the coordination hub for this, and we’re calling on you to be among the first to carve your name on this piece of internet history. Day 1 will be the default starting canvas, and media outlets of the future will see this page when they inevitably report on Ethereum’s successful decarbonization.
Buy blocks today, get your name or community’s name on the canvas, and do right by the world.
If you’re a dApp, protocol, or NFT project
You can decarbonize your project’s historical emissions today! If you email our team, we can identify blocks your project has used and bundle them for you to decarbonize in a few clicks.
If you’re part of the ReFi community
Refi is the next killer app for Ethereum. If you’re part of the ReFi movement, join the battle! You can get started today by emailing our team and buying blocks on app.blocks.garden which will give you governance rights on the protocol to propose new decarbonization strategies.
You’re an individual who wants to contribute
Head to app.blocks.garden, grab a plot, and be part of history!
Also be sure to join our Discord, follow us on Twitter, or sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know when the awesome upcoming perks will roll out
Get a Green Hero score multiplier by being a “Movement Starter”
The Green Hero Score favors early adopters. Starting a movement is more important than having a lot of money to fuel it. The Green Hero score will assign greater weight and rights to early adopters in the future of Blocks.garden rather than the larger contributors that join later.
Notable features
A closer look at some of the features we’re most proud of:
📈 | A progress bar for the whole crypto ecosystem
The world can quickly see all of Ethereum’s decarbonization progress in a single view. This can be applied to any Layer-2, sidechain or L1 Blockchain: let’s have a race between networks to see who gets to zero emissions first.
✅ | Green Proofs
Each purchased block links to a beautiful, human-readable “Green Proof” page where owners (and anyone else) can see, verify and tell the story of their impact. 🏄 see an example Green Proof
❝ Through our work with the Zero Labs team we know they care about maximizing transparency and compliance with the highest standards in the sustainability and renewable energy industry. Blocks.garden is another example of their commitment to this important work, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it! ❞
Marc Johnson, Environmental Solutions Architect at Protocol Labs
🐎🥇 | Green Hero leaderboard
The Ethereum community will be able to see the most faithful stewards of the public good that is Ethereum. Every wallet will have a Green Hero score, and other protocols will be able to use this to grant special privileges or rights to Ethereum’s best actors
🎁 Green Hero beneficiary
You may optionally assign the Green-NFT and Green Hero status to a beneficiary besides yourself. It’s the holiday season, so why not give this as a gift to your family and friends?
🔭 | What to expect on the full platform
🛒 Point and click purchase of canvas blocks
You’ll be able to select all the blocks on the canvas you wish to purchase by clicking on them directly.
⚡ ️Instant, automatic greenification of blocks
When blocks on the canvas are purchased, it will automatically buy and retire the required decarbonization certificates for the Ethereum blocks, attributed to the buyer’s (or beneficiary’s) wallet.
🖋 “Sign in with Ethereum” to decarbonize your blocks
You’ll be able to connect your wallet and see every block you’ve ever transacted on. A convenient screen will allow you to buy and decarbonize those blocks.
🎁 Special blocks, surprises and easter eggs
Along the 15+ million pixel journey you’ll find surprises, easter eggs, and rare NFTs hiding in some blocks for whichever Green Heros purchase them.
🌿 More decarbonization strategies
The platform will support other tokenized decarbonization strategies including offsets, carbon removals, and even crowdfunding brand new, real-world renewables or carbon projects.
⚖ ️| Decentralization and DAO governance
Green Heroes (Green-NFT holders) will be the sole entities with governance rights over the protocol. Future decarbonization strategies will be proposed, researched and vetted by the DAO.
Read more in Blocks.garden Roadmap 🚗
🏃 | Get started today
The world will notice when crypto becomes the first industry to decarbonize its emissions history.
1️⃣ | Buy and decarbonize some blocks
Today, you can enshrine your name, ad, artwork, or message on the starting canvas for all to see. This is an opportunity to make a positive impact on the world and be recognized for it.
👉 head to https://app.blocks.garden and buy some blocks before someone else does!
2️⃣ | Greenify your App or protocol
If you represent a project, community, or company wishing to decarbonize your Ethereum usage, 👉 please contact our team and we can assist you.
3️⃣ | Share this story
this is a movement and we need everybody to chip in. let’s show the world how we coordinate and fund public goods
👉 share on twitter @zerolabsx or join the conversation on discord
We’re looking forward to going on this journey with the Ethereum community, but it doesn’t stop with Ethereum. We’re using this concept to decarbonize other blockchains like Bitcoin, and eventually, other industries. Once again, Ethereum is proving itself as one the biggest sources of innovation on Earth right now, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.
❓| Do you have more questions?
head to the Blocks.garden documentation, where you’ll find more info about how the decarbonization happens, who is Zero Labs — the team that built Blocks.garden, who are the amazing launch partners and more
