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This Saturday we have the debut of the “green” NFT. A group of digital artists (including popular celebrity Beeple) will showcase a series of NFT works that have been specially formatted to reduce their impact on the environment. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Open Earth Foundation, a Yale University spinout that uses a range of technologies, including blockchain, to actually calculate how much carbon is in the atmosphere. The partnership also involves the investment of RNDR, a system that incentivizes idle computing power to help render some digital media effects, such as CGI, and Nifty Gateway, an NFT marketplace under Gemini, the exchange founded by the WinkleVoss twins. Not long after NFTs became popular, people began to pay attention to the possible environmental impact of issuing cryptocurrencies. In the cryptocurrency community, if you discuss issues such as the environmental damage caused by PoW mining, you may be disdained by Bitcoin/Ethereum enthusiasts. These "green NFTs" are intended to highlight the impact that the cryptocurrency industry currently has on the environment. But the reality is complex and nuanced, as is the current debate about climate change. For Martin Wainstein, founder of the Open Earth Foundation, the immediate and decisive stance taken by NFT artists provides a great way to raise awareness while also driving collaboration. Wayne noted that NFT art creation highlights this problem, but it is not the problem itself. The problem lies in the computational load of Ethereum running smart contracts and the PoW mining that ensures the security of the Bitcoin network. “It’s been fascinating over the past four years,” said Wayne. “You don’t see an investor or innovator stay away from Bitcoin because of the energy consumption issue, but when it comes to art, the issue is raised in a high-profile way.” The relationship between NFTs and Ethereum in terms of energy consumption cannot be directly equated. Joshua Bijak, head of the RNDR project, said: “Whether there are NFTs or not, the Ethereum network will operate as usual, and there will still be other types of transactions on the network. This seems to be rarely mentioned. It is unfair to blame NFTs for environmental damage.” Among the steps the partners behind Saturday’s “carbon-friendly” NFT auction are taking is to reduce the computational load of NFT issuance by reducing the number of Ethereum transactions required for each NFT artwork. RNDR project leader Bjarke said: “For the purpose of this auction, we minimized the number of contract deployments as much as possible and eliminated the tendency to issue tokens endlessly through technical means.” In addition, each NFT artwork will be attached to another unique NFT token, which represents carbon credits from a voluntary registry of deforestation projects in Peru. It is worth noting that Nifty Gateway is under pressure to simplify the minting process and is currently addressing this issue. Bjark noted that this is a highly sensitive area right now, and even clear and reasonable attempts to minimize the relationship between NFTs and carbon emissions can cause unease. For example, the medium article on Twitter by the NFT platform SuperRare was well received by many people, but it also aroused the disgust of some people, and some artists said they would leave the platform. Sara Ludy, an artist and composer who is also a member of the exhibition, said she was aware of the costs of rendering digital works before the recent NFT boom. Rudy said: "Concern for the ecological environment has become part of my work. This is the awareness I have formed in my own practice and also my experience when teaching 3D virtual reality experimental applications - you must be aware of the ecological protection of your computer use." Kyle Gordon, an award-winning multidisciplinary artist who is also involved in the exhibition, said he expects NFT platforms to be pressured to implement other systems that help energy use in the coming months. Gordon said: "NFT issuance may not be the culprit of energy use, but at least it is involved. Although this green NFT activity is really complicated, the key is that all parties can actively cooperate." Translation: Brother Ping |
