Bounties for the Oceans: Sustained, Verifiable Plastic Cleanups

Bounties Network and MakerDAO are embarking on the first social impact bounty project

Plastics removed from the stomach of a pilot whale that died after washing ashore. CreditThai Whales, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“After the whale’s death on Friday, a necropsy showed that it had washed ashore in the southern province of Songkhla with nearly 18 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Veterinarians had tried to save its life all week, to no avail.”

This is an excerpt from a The New York Times story about a whale’s death in Thailand due to the amount of plastic it had ingested and it is a clear sign whatever is currently being done to stop plastic getting into our oceans is not enough.

We’ve always felt that as we look towards decentralizing the social impact space, Bounties could help incentivize and organize positive global action across key UN initiatives. For this reason, and because of the countless stories like the tragic one above, the first project in our partnership with MakerDAO is a bounty fit for World Oceans Day but continuing way beyond 24 hours.

MakerDAO and the Dai Stablecoin System

For those unfamiliar with MakerDAO and the Dai Stablecoin System, Dai is a decentralized ‘stablecoin’ pegged against the value of the U.S. Dollar. Dai is created by the Dai Stablecoin System, a decentralized platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Why Social Impact Bounties?

As Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote last year, “the space for experimentation in social systems design will only continue to grow.” Yes, bounties have been around for a long time, but they’ve proven their merit as a tool to incentivize and organize people. A bounty is essentially a simple social contract that, on top of a blockchain, could help us dramatically improve our current social impact systems.