gm gm,
Have you ever thought about Carbon-as-a-Service? Thanks to Climate Collective member Thallo’s API, businesses all over the world can embed carbon credits directly into their products and services… à la CaaS! It’s a great example of how blockchain tech is being used in practical, replicable ways to create positive social impact, AND you can read all about in this week’s Climate Collective Member Spotlight, below.
This week’s edition is packed with links, so jump right in!
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts
🚀 Opportunities & Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
💚 The Climate Collective Member Spotlight: Thallo
About Thallo:
Thallo is a single access point to the carbon market.
By leveraging blockchain technology Thallo aims to revolutionize and democratize the way individuals and businesses buy and sell carbon offsets. Thallo opens the door to the entire carbon market through a user-friendly marketplace platform to buy-and-retire carbon credits and an API.
Thallo’s goal is to build a future where impactful climate action is ubiquitous. The company’s Carbon-as-a-Service offering is therefore an API that allows businesses to embed ICROA-accredited carbon credits from across the globe directly into products and services. This allows almost any business to incorporate climate action into their value proposition.
Channeling Capital to Climate-Saving Projects
In a market dominated by intermediaries, Thallo’s platform connects buyers directly with project developers driving climate-saving projects on the ground. The vast majority of these projects are based in the Global South. By cutting out the middle-men, Thallo maximizes the impact for every dollar spent.
Thallo’s platform is also completely free for project developers: no onboarding fees and no transaction fees. It allows them to set their own prices and see the prices of other projects in the market. This ensures that the market is fair and that project developers are best able to raise capital for their projects - as equal participants in their own right.
Perhaps most importantly, Thallo’s goal of scaling capital flow from the Global North to impactful projects in the Global South remains central to the design of the product. By focusing on creating a fair and accessible marketplace, Thallo bridges the gap between carbon financers and implementers, contributing to meaningful climate action for all.
Making it real: Decarbonizing Web3 with Matter Labs
Matter Labs, creators of blockchain solution zkSync, aimed to address the environmental impact of their operations but lacked a clear approach for effective transformation. Thallo, with its Carbon-as-a-Service API, provided zkSync with carbon credits, aligning with its values and budget, and offered guidance and education on carbon offsetting.
The collaboration led to Matter Labs offsetting zkSync’s H1 2023 emissions, funding three ICROA-accredited environmental projects in Bolivia and Colombia, including biochar and reforestation projects respectively. These projects were all nature-based and had significant social and biodiversity spillover effects. For example, the biochar project in Bolivia contributes directly to SDGs 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 15. Thallo's solution ensured full transparency and audibility of zkSync's carbon offset efforts, aligning with EU MiCA regulation requirements for sustainability disclosure.
Potential Future Impact:
Thallo's mission is clear: scale the carbon market by 25 times, prioritizing easy and accessible participation for businesses, all while ensuring fairness for project developers. The team at Thallo believe that software can not only help solve many of the challenges that undermine environmental markets - but also make climate action ubiquitous and easy.
Thallo plans to further develop and grow its carbon marketplace. Thallo is simplifying the process for businesses to integrate carbon credits into their products and services. This approach not only aligns with the company's mission to accelerate climate action, but also positions Thallo as a key player in advancing global Net Zero goals.
If you’re interested in decarbonising your business, learning more about the impact of the carbon markets, or simply want to engage with the Thallo community please use the relevant links below.
Get involved:
[This feature is part of our ongoing “💚 The Climate Collective Member Spotlight” series. Web3ForGood is a Climate Collective Grant Recipient. We appreciate The Climate Collective’s partnership and support in connecting us with member organizations for this series. All opinions remain our own.]
📣 Latest News
Chaos Labs partners with Optimism Foundation for USDC liquidity optimization
Filecoin Foundation Successfully Deploys InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) in Space
Argentina scraps crypto regularization in Milei’s new economic reform
El Salvador is likely to keep its Bitcoin ambitions if President Nayib Bukele is reelected on Feb. 4
GBBC gears up for growth with new board of directors & executive appointment
Crypto Council for Innovation adds Circle and Solana, stocks up on policy hires
Project Updates
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🧭 Grants for Public Good: A Roadmap for Resilient Democratic Funding. (Gitcoin)
🎂 Vitalik’s birthday post: The end of my childhood. (vitalik.eth)
🙌 Andrew Berkowitz, CEO and Co-Founder of ValuesCo, on where blockchain meets impact, and participation isn't just encouraged; it's celebrated. (Forbes)
👩🎨 There is a way forward that works for writers, readers, collectors, creators, and everyone. It starts with owning work and allowing others to pay to collect it. (AVC)
👜 In the world of AI replicas and liberated IP, brands should be minting as means of IP and consumer protection. (Zora)
📄 Study: Do artists perceive blockchain as a new revenue opportunity? A social representation study of the Korean music industry. (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications)
📄 Study: Genuine DeFi as Critical Infrastructure: A Conceptual Framework for Combating Illicit Finance Activity in Decentralized Finance. (SSRN)
🔨 Bhutan built a Bitcoin mine on the site of its failed ‘education city.’ (Forbes)
🤖 The promise and challenges of crypto + AI applications. (vitalik.eth)
📝 A poem inscribed using Bitcoin Ordinals fetched over $11,000 at auction. It’s the first ever individual poem sale by Sotheby’s. (Decrypt)
🧠 The World Hates Crypto. (coopahtroopa.mirror.xyz)
🪐Crypto's Three Body Problem: The absence of these regulatory functions considerably limits the forms of prosocial behavior that can be fostered or enforced. (Other Internet Research Institute)
📡 Satellite images and AI could help fight spatial apartheid in South Africa. (MIT Technology Review)
💼 How companies can benefit from Web3 in 2024. (Fortune)
🏞 Africa's fertile lands hold untapped potential amidst climate threats; Web3 and regenerative finance offer innovative solutions. (ReFi DAO)
🛶 Bitcoin is saving wasted energy and expanding financial freedom in Africa. (Bitcoin Magazine)
🔈 Podcasts:
Crypto Altruism Podcast Episode 139 - WaterLab - Accelerating the Development of Regenerative Water with Web3
The Web3 Nonprofit Episode 8 - Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home
GreenPill Season 3 - Ep. 8 - CHAOSS w/ Matt Germonprez and Sean Goggins
GreenPill Season 3 - Ep. 9 - Impact Mastermind w/ Elliot Bayev
ReFi Podcast Season 3 - Ep. 20: Redesigning Money with Karla Córdoba Brenes
🚀 Opportunities & Events:
Apply: Eco Association is hiring a Content Marketing Manager.
Apply: RADAR is seeking several different types of Community Leads for 2024.
Apply: Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project is seeking a Research Fellow (scroll midway through the link for details).
Learn: The Decentralized Web (DWeb) for Creators Course empowers next-generation artists, archivists, gallerists, activists, and others with the knowledge and tools necessary for exploring the decentralized web.
Learn: SheFi empowers female and non-binary professionals and entrepreneurs to succeed in frontier industries. Season 10 enrollment is open now.
Speak: Good Tech Fest speaker applications for the May 1-2 virtual conference are now open.
Build: #BUIDL is a call to blockchain enthusiasts to build and contribute to the advancement of the blockchain ecosystem. At ETHDenver 2024, #BUIDLers will form teams of 2 to 4 and spend up to 9 days #BUIDLing to their unique Web3 visions.
Events
Attend: @civilmonkey has curated a list of “fairly aligned X spaces with a focus on using Web3 for positive impact in the real world.” All are happening in the next few days.
Attend: DWeb Meetup February 2024 — The Latest in the DWeb Ecosystem is happening February 7 online.
Attend: The Green Accountability Technology Accelerator Launch Event is happening February 8 online.
Attend: AI for Justice - Fine Tuning Large Language Models is happening February 8 online.
Attend: NFTs 4 Social Good space happens every Thursday at 12p EST. Next up: Humanitarian & Environmental Efforts on February 8.
Attend: Africa Tech Summit Nairobi is happening February 14-15.
Attend: A New Digital Finance Paradigm is happening February 20 in Brussels.
Attend: Social Impact Summit 2024 by Blockchain Law for Social Good Center is happening February 27 in San Francisco.
Attend: Funding the Commons is happening April 13-14 in Berkeley, CA.
ETHDenver Events
Attend: ETHDenver is happening February 23 - March 3 in Denver.
Attending ETHDenver? Here’s a complete and regularly updated list of side ETH Denver events.
Attend: DeSciSummit2024 is happening February 23 - March 1 in Denver.
Attend: Web3 Grants Summit w/Meta Gov and Gitcoin is happening February 27.
Attend: DE:PIN SUMMIT is happening February 27 in Denver.
Attend: SheFi Summit is happening February 28 in Denver.
Attend: ACJR and the Crypto Communications Collective’s TechTalks: Exploring Tomorrow's Trends is happening February 29 in Denver.
Attend: Schelling Point Session: Impact Reporting at Gitcoin House is happening March 2.
📡 On Our Radar
Gridless enables distributed, rural, hydro Bitcoin mining in Africa that supports local energy development.
The Crypto Comms Collective is an invitation only group for Web3 PR & Communications professionals.
Talent Protocol V2 is a talent ecosystem, powered by AI and secured by blockchain, that unlocks rich reputation data and makes human potential more visible.
Crypto the Game is a massive crypto survival game that is happening now.
✨ And one two more thing(s)
Responsible Tech published the Responsible Tech Org List 2024, a curated list of over 600 organizations working with responsible tech.
a16z’s Chris Dixon has published a book, Read Write Own, about how the concentration of power into the hands of a few Internet behemoths is bad for entrepreneurs and society at large.