Myria’s blockchain and node network achieves carbon neutrality
Blockchain technology often hits the headlines for the wrong reasons. The most acid criticisms are usually leveled at Bitcoin and Ethereum, partly because they are the largest and most easily targeted cryptocurrency projects, and partly because the computational power required to run them equals the energy consumption of a small sovereign nation.
What many overly-enthusiastic, nay-saying, anti-crypto journalists fail to mention, however, is that these blockchains use only a fraction of the energy soaked up by the traditional banking system.
Myria’s Carbon Neutral Mission
Since Myria’s leading L2 blockchain gaming and scaling solution was launched, the founders have had their hearts and minds set on aligning with the trend of lowering energy consumption. To the point where they can call their remote-first, global business genuinely carbon-neutral.
Says Myria’s co-founder and head of blockchain, Brendan Duhamel, “Carbon neutrality was in Myria’s business plan right off the bat. We onboard a high number of Web3 games each month and they all need to mint NFTs. This requires a certain level of computational power and there’s no getting around that.”
He adds, “One of the key considerations for our Layer 2 build, therefore, was which Layer 1 we should build on. We knew that it had to be Ethereum for the size of its community and its unparalleled security. But it used a similar consensus model to Bitcoin known as mining which is energy intensive. That concerned us.”
Ethereum reduces its energy consumption by 99.9%
Fortunately, Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin announced what they called The Merge, which involved transitioning from a Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism saving a whopping 99.9% on its energy bill.
“The Merge was a blessing,” confirms Brendan. “Now that the switch has happened, Ethereum’s energy consumption is dramatically reduced. But at Myria, we didn’t just want to reduce our energy consumption. We wanted to negate it entirely.”
With complete sustainability for the network at the forefront of the founders’ minds, Myria enlisted the help of Nori, a company with which it is now partnered.
“Nori prides itself on being the most transparent marketplace for the removal of carbon emissions,” says Brendan. “Myria’s subscription to Nori is enough to offset more than 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per month.”
Myria makes its nodes sustainable
This means that as more validator nodes go live, there is more than enough in the carbon offset tank for Myria to cover its carbon footprint.
“In total, Myria will have around 40,000 node validators, necessary to secure the network and keep it safe. We see it as our responsibility to make sure that the combined carbon footprint of all computers working to fulfill Myria’s consensus mechanism is accounted for.
“We want Myria to be an environmentally friendly blockchain company and I think we’ve already achieved that. This means we can get on with the business of doing what we do best — making great Web3 games and bringing high-quality developers and studios on board.” He adds, “We also feel our concerted efforts to run Myria as a sustainable business will give people even more reason to join us as node operators.”
More about Nori
Nori is a completely transparent and blockchain-powered marketplace for carbon offsets, directly providing science-backed, peer-reviewed, carbon removal credits. What makes Nori special is the optimized way it funds regenerative agriculture projects that store carbon in the soil. This helps to repair the Earth’s climate and build a better future for everyone.
Nori coordinates between many stakeholders to create and sell Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRTs). One NRT represents one tonne of removed CO2 stored for a minimum of ten years. There are a few ways to remove and store carbon from the earth’s atmosphere. While it aims to serve all methods within its marketplace, currently Nori utilizes the US Croplands Methodology, which farmers can use to get paid for additional CO2 removal.
As a client of Nori, Myria joins an illustrious list of other companies committed to helping remove an estimated 1.5 trillion tonnes of CO2 from the Earth’s atmosphere and ensure environmental equilibrium for future generations. These include Rarible, The Sandbox, Avalanche, CoinFund, Shopify, and many more.
Says Brendan, “Blockchain is a new sector that has grown rapidly, and the negative press that Bitcoin has received because of its energy consumption has spurred a lot of people and companies in the blockchain industry to take action. It would be a real shame to see the incredible innovation that is happening right now hamstrung because of the environmental narrative.
“So I’m relieved to see more blockchain and Web3 gaming companies doing everything they can to ensure that their endeavors and enterprises aren’t having a detrimental effect on the planet. It really is the way forward.”
To learn more about Myria, visit the website. If you’d like to buy and run a carbon-neutral Myria node and start earning $MYRIA tokens, register your interest with us, here. You can follow Brendan Duhamel on Twitter here.
