Objective: To develop a carbon-neutral HyperChain on the Aeternity blockchain and launch a Carbon NFT platform, enabling environmentally responsible blockchain operations and supporting carbon offset initiatives, and to share useful findings with the Aeternity Foundation community.
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Application Status
New
Date Updated
[Today’s Date: January 27, 2025]
Submitted By
Matthew Pickup
Team
Architects of the Carbon Utility Token and the Retire App for tokens
Approved Budget (in Hours)
250
Used Budget (in Hours)
0
Planned Delivery
1-3 months
Funding Category
Infrastructure, Sustainability, Community
Application Title
Development of a Carbon-Neutral HyperChain and Carbon Offset NFT
Applicant
CUT Carbon Distributed Technologies AG
Value Application
This project would open the door to direct integrations for other Aeternity projects and chains into a pool of certified carbon offsets. It creates opportunities for carbon-neutral protocols and proof of green credentials for activities on various hyperchains.
Definition of Terms
N/A
Status Quo
To date, we have helped users offset over 6 million kg of carbon on the blockchain. New technologies like blockchain can often be hindered by concerns about their power usage footprint. This project helps continue the adoption and exploration of blockchain while enabling greener or completely carbon-neutral activities.
Required Work
- Feasibility Study: Assess potential, sustainability, and technical requirements for implementing a carbon-neutral HyperChain.
- Minting Contract: Develop a smart contract for minting Carbon NFTs, representing verified carbon offsets.
- HyperChain Development:
- Deploy renewable energy-powered Virtual Machines.
- Implement DevOps automation and set up core blockchain components.
- Establish a HyperChain testnet with Aeternity rollups for testing.
- Smart Contract Deployment for Carbon NFTs:
- Introduce staking mechanisms linked to CO₂ NFT deployment.
- Optimize staking load and incentivize green node operations.
Estimate
250 hours of developer time
Known Limitations
- Aeternity blockchain uncertainties may affect deployment or scalability.
- Challenges in mastering the Sophia smart contract language.
- Complexity in integration and security measures.
Outlook
This project is the first step toward unlocking interoperability between many chains and projects, enabling an Aeternity-native source of digital carbon credits.
Publishment and Maintenance
The project results and code will be published openly, and we commit to maintaining the project post-completion.
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Dear @cut.eco,
Your application for Development of a Carbon-Neutral HyperChain and Carbon Offset NFT has been approved!
Please update your proposal with an email address where we can share more information on the contracting and reporting schedule.
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Grant Update – Green Hyperchains Feasibility & Deployment
Much time was spent working on the feasibility study for green hyperchains, focusing on sustainability, technical requirements, and deployment strategy.
Our assessment and experiments using Sofia found that its programming model is transferrable enough from other EVM-style languages that we don’t anticipate immediate challenges. However there are some nuances around Aeternity’s oracle system and architectural needs that will likely require a dedicated carbon agent that runs alongside the hyperchain.
To establish an ideal hosting environment, we evaluated options and selected Zetta, a carbon-neutral data center in Norway. Their team has been highly responsive, and we’re now setting up DevOps tooling using OpenTofu and OpenStack to prepare for repeated AE testnet deployment experiments within their environment.
Additionally, we’ve identified the need to calculate the carbon footprint of rollups to the Aeternity blockchain—what we call the “upstream footprint” of proof-of-work operations. This will help create carbon drawdown solutions for the entire Aeternity ecosystem and create a mechanism for the Carbon NFT with retirement attributions to get burned and lock into offset that PoW behaviour.
We hope to be able to share access to a production version of hyperchain with the community in the coming weeks to do more load testing and put the carbon NFT through its paces.
Total time spent so far: 115 hours.
Next Steps:
- Deploy smart contracts
- Configure AE testnet in Zetta’s environment
- Develop footprint calculation model
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