Why Regen Network?
As I’ve been returning to thinking about blockchain, I’ve been increasingly interested in Regen Network. In fact, I am engaging myself in it more and more.
Why engage with Regen Network as the green/renewable blockchain of your choice? In fact, why blockchain to solve an environmental problem?
Let’s go back a step to a world we’d like to imagine. A world where actions that sustain the planet and its long term thriving are rewarded, and actions that do not are penalised. Where we can see the world healing, perhaps slowly at first, and then faster until humanity can live in harmony with the planet, with Gaia. Where non-human life is honoured and respected.
This is the end point. So again, why blockchain?
First, and to state the obvious, a blockchain is only a solution to a problem that blockchain can solve. Blockchains are an immutable chain of data in cyberspace. They can’t plant trees, they can’t repair erosion and they can’t form communities. They can, however, assist in all of these.
How? Well, back to that immutable chain of data. A blockchain can store data in a way that cannot be erased nor rewritten, only appended to. And it does this in a way that removes the need for trust in transactions.
This essence of the blockchain lends itself quite naturally to accounting and financial applications. It enables decentralised governance with rules that can be coded, voted on, and enforced through the blockchain.
Regen Network applies these principles to ecological accounting with Regen Ledger, a domain-specific proof of stake blockchain. In the context of environmental problems, it brings two key blockchain attributes:
- Providing assurance that any data, once captured, is stored securely without interference; and
- Providing assurance that contracts, once coded, will be executed flawlessly.
A Ledger for Earth
The ecological data that might be captured could be anything, anything that is important to understand the state of that environment.
In the specific context of land, it might be soil carbon. It might be tree cover. It might be rainfall runoff, pest concentrations, soil surface temperature or conductivity. This data, the connection between the real world and the blockchain, is captured by so-called “oracles”.
The quality and reliability of the oracle determines the value of the data. Public, objective data, automatically captured without human intervention is high quality because it does not suffer from human error or interpretation. It is less prone to interference, and thus a more reliable account for the ledger. This might be satellite data or field sensors.
Assurance of contract execution
Contracts coded into the blockchain are automatically executed upon a pre-determined trigger. A change in some relevant data point. An example is a contract stipulating that, when soil carbon increases by a defined amount, a credit is made available to the farm or farmer. This contract is executed automatically upon that change being measured.
So why Regen?
Storing data and executing contracts are features that are common to all blockchains. It also makes sense to tailor a blockchain to the data it is storing and the community it is serving. Such a blockchain is designed to deal with the nuance of the data being managed, rather than being a multi-purpose tool that can handle anything. It caters to domain specific governance, community, aspirations. It is, in short, an expression of what matters to that community.
In the case of ecological data, there is a great deal of important nuance. Features such as different classes of data (carbon credits, biodiversity credits etc), geographical location, accuracy and timestamp. A blockchain dedicated to ecological data is designed to deal with this data excellently, potentially at the expense of other functions that are unimportant in the ecological context.
The Regen Ledger in particular is built upon the Cosmos SDK. The Cosmos SDK is a modular framework for building a blockchain. A developer only takes the modules required for the application, and so builds an application that is better suited to the use case than tweaking a generalist blockchain.
Furthermore, Cosmos resolves the broader energy consumption problem of the methods used to secure the blockchain. The two main methods (at the moment) are proof of work and proof of stake. Proof of work requires computing power to crunch a problem in order to add a block to the chain (“mining”). This computing power requires energy. Proof of stake (“PoS”) blockchains, such as Cosmos, are secured by users pledging their own stake towards validators running the network. PoS reduces the computing power significantly, and with carbon offsets, the blockchain can be carbon neutral or even carbon positive.
The Regen Ledger builds in further functionality to the Cosmos blockchain, like a module for the capture and storage of eco-credits. Eco-credits support real-world markets for ecosystem service credits, enabling a global ecological accounting system that can automatically reward increases in ecosystem health in ways that are not currently possible. This incentivises positive ecological outcomes
The first credits to be supported on the Regen Ledger are carbon credits, however the ledger is capable of creating many classes of ecological credits such as biodiversity and soil health credits.
The work taken to develop and deploy the eco-credit module is just the beginning of what Regen Network can achieve. Oracles can pick up any data that can be reasonably captured, and the actions upon triggering the contract can also be anything. Indeed, a change in state of data might initiate real-world action. Automatically. It might be coupled with artificial intelligence to take action based on a forecast. The possibilities are huge, and Regen Network is just getting started.
Where is this headed?
The Regen Network is, in short, built on a blockchain that is not just tailored to ecological data and contracts through its modular design, but further refined to add modules that solve for the specific ecological challenges.
Furthermore, the blockchain is readily able to be made carbon neutral due to its low energy consumption, energy consumption that can be offset through high quality carbon credits.
This domain-specific blockchain then enables a whole host of ecological services to be recognised and rewarded. It provides for alignment of values through alignment of incentives, where there do not need to be subjective arbiters of performance at every step. Where self-interest can finally serve the collective good. Ultimately, Regen Network creates the infrastructure for humans and non-humans to live in harmony, to regenerate the planet for current generations and all that follow.
This article was written with the support of the Regen Network, and particularly Paul Weidner and Niels Sibbersen who provided great commentary and editing. Thank you both!
