GECO Community Spotlight
Coffee and conversations with the lab10 collective
In order to spotlight all of the incredible GECO funded teams, we decided to launch a community blog series — a monthly update that will give our readers the inside scoop on the teams behind GECO, what they are building, and most importantly, their project’s impact!
Today we chatted with the lab10 collective, the minds behind Minerva MultiCard, an MVP that allows holders of Infineon Blockchain Security 2Go smart cards to sign Safe transactions with a Raspberry Pi-connected NFC reader.
Who are you?
The Minerva Multicard project team: Thomas Haller, Dietmar (Didi) Hofer and Thomas Zeinzinger.
We build sustainable energy and mobility related blockchain solutions. We strive to create a world with zero-carbon emission and capitalize on Ethereum blockchain technology to achieve that. The lab10 collective is a decentralized cooperative and has over 40 members with a wide range of skills.
How did you get into Ethereum / Crypto?
Thomas Z. and Didi stumbled upon Ethereum around 2015/2016 and as it happened with all of us in the industry, they couldn’t resist jumping down the rabbit hole. This led to the institution of the BlockchainHub Graz Meetup in 2016 and then the foundation of the lab10 collective in 2017 which is the organizational umbrella under which we collaborate.
Why did you choose this project?
We learned about Gnosis Safe at Devcon 4 and found both the concept and the maturity of the implementation convincing. A few months later, we learned about Infineon’s NFC card for blockchain and had the chance to experiment with it as part of a hackathon project.
We’re always looking for ways to make blockchain technology easier to use, and so we came to the conclusion that combining the NFC card and the Gnosis Safe could be such an opportunity. The NFC card offers a high degree of protection against theft of private keys, but does not allow the creation of a backup to the key. The Gnosis Safe, on the other hand, lets users swap owner addresses meaning a lost NFC card can simply be replaced without posing a threat to the user’s funds.
Combining these solutions creates a better end-to-end user experience and a higher level of security.
What impact do you think your project will have?
We hope that Gnosis Safe together with the Minerva MultiCard will ease the onboarding process of end users to web3 and create the needed awareness. The power and potential of smart contract wallets is still not appreciated, so we hope that projects like ours will convince others to pursue further development work in this field.
Our team builds smart contract systems to facilitate investments into de-carbonization initiatives. Every lab10 collective member will invest 250€/per/year to reduce carbon emissions through an Ethereum/ARTIS based platform, which will be used to finance photovoltaic installation.
With Ethereum as a decentralized financial settlement layer, the ARTIS sidechain to stream and scale transactions, and the Gnosis Safe to safely and securely onboard end users to web3, we are building a coordination platform that facilitates the global shift towards zero carbon. Our master plan gives more insight into our motivation and steps we will take to achieve a zero carbon world.
Ultimately, transparent, automated, real-time energy and money flow make it easy and economically attractive for climate conscious minds to set their carbon-footprint off. As renewable energy flows from the funded source, the invested amount can be paid back or reinvested. We will examine Token Bonding Curves to further propel adequate resource allocation and collectively protect our atmosphere, the greatest victim of the tragedy of the commons.
Why are you interested in Gnosis and what we’re building?
The Ethereum ecosystem is strong because of contributions from projects like the Gnosis Safe and dxDAO, both of which are great platforms to build on. High quality work and an open source attitude is what makes Gnosis interesting to us.
To us, the Gnosis Safe together with the Minerva MultiCard will act as a core building block that will provide end users with a frictionless and secure experience on the blockchain. The smart contract capability of the Gnosis Safe is crucial to us as it is a pre-requirement for a fully automated coordination platform to facilitate effective capital allocation towards zero-carbon initiatives.
How do you envision the ecosystem will change in the next 5–10 years?
Ethereum 2.0 will dominate the decentralized financial/legal world. The ecosystem will grow further, including 2nd layer solutions like Plasma chains, state channels and sidechains. Understanding of the advantages of authenticated data will spread and may also drive interest in and adoption of technologies like Polkadot or Cosmos. Zero-Knowledge powered solutions will be used for privacy and scalability purposes.
Tell us a fun fact about your team.
About 25% of the most active members are called Thomas. On the Minerva MultiCard team, it’s 67% of the members!
What is your team motto?
Let’s co-create a zero-carbon society.
Many thanks to Mareen Glaeske, Kei Kreutler, and lab10
