Concerns over Bitcoin’s environmental impact triggered the formation of “greener” coins as far back as 2012.

This 2014 video of an environmentalist assaulting me… may be of some value in establishing that you’re not reading the work of a militant tree-hugger. But when a conservationist grievance against the crypto-community is justified, all of us should be willing to admit it and act on it in a self-policing manner. By now you may have read the statistics of just how much energy the Bitcoin miners are using and, perhaps more disturbingly, how much it reportedly takes to send a transaction through the network (with the implementation of Segwit tech on August 21st, we can expect transactions to become more effiicent though).

Placed in perspective, the numbers are probably microscopic in comparison to the environmental apocalypses generated by, say, the Fed military and its EPA FellowTravelers. But this revolution, like the life-saving industrial one which preceded it, comes with pollution. True to the spirit of decentralization, our community has developed and deployed many potential solutions to this problem in the form of competing crypto-currencies. Before getting to the list, note that Nasty Mining’s sustainable bitcoin mining operation was covered recently and won’t be mentioned here.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of what appear to be the eight most prominent cryptos claiming a primarily environmental focus:

1) Peercoin – “PPC” was possibly the first altcoin whose creators focused heavily on environmental friendliness. A “hybrid,” Peercoin uses the somewhat environmentally-challenged proof-of-work approach to create coins, but over time the network is designed to become more and more “proof-of-stake.” As Wikipedia puts it, “The proof-of-stake method of generating coins requires very minimal energy consumption; it only requires the energy to run the client software on a computer, as opposed to running resource-intensive cryptographic hashing functions… Peercoin uses roughly 30% of the energy consumption of bitcoin.” Peercoin goes back to 2012.

2) EverGreenCoin “EGC,” launched in late 2015, seems to focus almost entirely on environment-related approaches to crypto. They’re crowd funding a device called the “solar staker.” This would be similar to a Bitcoin mining rig in some ways but different in the sense that it provides the less-environmentally-damaging proof of stake without necessarily using grid electricity. Additionally there are EGC-connected lands in Utah which purportedly offer “EverGreenCoin Claim Share members” access to “prospecting, camping, hiking, and rockhounding.” Though the coin is too small to even have its own Wikipedia entry yet, EGC founders seem to have been very attentive to their community since pre-launch. They have a passionate group of supporters to show for it without much visible opposition. Their pre-launch announcement thread on BitcoinTalk.org now stretches to over 200 mostly-happy pages.

3) EnergyCoin – “ENRG” is “meant to provide a platform for communities, companies and individuals to built (sic) energy applications using the inherent strengths of cryptocurrencies and blockchains.” Decide for yourself if you should be worried that this mission statement at the top of their front page contains a grammatical error. Creators founded it in 2014 and refer to it as a clone of Peercoin with some improvements. First, it claims to be purely Proof-of-Stake, which should make it less energy-intensive than Peercoin. Its announcement thread on BitcoinTalk is now an impressive 300 pages long.

4) SolarCoin – “SLR” is unusual in that it’s easy to understand. Let’s say you have the capability of feeding electricity back to your grid. Their website asks you to provide proof of each megawatt-hour you’ve returned, and in exchange it promises EnergyCoins. Something else that’s unusual: Their front page lets you set up a paper wallet. The BT thread announcing this coin spread to 258 pages since the launch in early 2014, and it has a Wikipedia entry.

5) GENERcoin – This one claims to be a currency backed by biofuel, but it has generated little buzz since its founding in 2014. I couldn’t even find an official abbreviation for it.

6) TheGCCcoin – GCC claims to run a 3D printing hub which offsets its own pollution in the following not-very-easy-to-understand way: “Emission of CO2 from energy consumed to produce 3D prints and to mine coins through wallets is neutralized by transferring equivalent value to a green account.” Announcement thread triggered a modest 18 pages of BitcoinTalk discussion since its creation 2015.

7) NXT – These folks get an “S” for simple when it comes to keeping their story short: “NXT breaks crypto history by being the worlds first 100% Proof of Stake currency written from scratch, 100% green…” NXT is reportedly “forged” rather than mined… a process they say is so efficient you can do it on a phone.

8) EcoBit “ECOB,” claims to be the “first-ever green blockchain project.” This newcomer is supported by the UN and the Malaysian government. It launched this year and has reportedly raised almost $5 million via token sale. Although it’s only spurred 13 pages worth of BT buzz thus far, it’s getting good press and is making bold claims:

– The securing of a million acres of rain forest

– A 30-year plan for forest guardianship

– Tech to trace produce

– Proof-of-stake approach with reward for “holding”

– An ambassador on the team

Whether the government involvement is a plus or not, it does set this eco-crypto apart… as does its focus on an overlooked part of the world.

There are also coins like Gridcoin which are not necessarily claiming a primarily environmental focus but which put computers to work on real problems like asteroid behavior and genomes. Presumably the power used to create a Gridcoi .does more than just earn you some crypto, it solves a problem that needed solving and would have eaten up energy anyway.

BurstCoin, likewise, does not primarily tout environmental friendliness in its propaganda but claims to be the green-ist to mine… using hard-drive “Proof-of-Capacity.”

Like Al Gore or any business claiming to be green, a crypto and its staff can talk a good environmental game while doing more harm than good. But if the history of Peercoin is any indication, all of these projects will at least spark ideas and provide examples of what works, what doesn’t. And, just maybe, one of them really will turn environmental-friendliness into massive, clean wealth.

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash