Carbon Sequestration-Based Cryptocurrency

Contextual Citation

"In some ways, a currency represents a sort of “baptismal name” that allows a given society to label that which it values most highly. Consequently, the material form of this value becomes immobilized in secure vaults as “reserves” while abstract representations of it circulate in our everyday speech, in our accounting books, and in our trading systems. Thus, with a carbon-backed currency, we could align our economy with the cycles of regeneration found in nature by finally recognizing that carbon, which we know serves as the foundation of all biological life on our planet, is of central economic value as well."

- Gustav Peebles and Ben Luzzatto [1]

Description

A proposal by Gustav Peebles and Ben Luzzatto:

"We believe that recent developments on two seemingly-unrelated fronts could help the global economy finally recognize the central value of waste to its functioning. Our proposed revaluation of waste is made possible, firstly, by the advent of digital money that can be governed by entities outside of nation-states. Secondly, much as in the past gold was pulled from mountains, secured in banks, and then converted into productive capital, today widely available natural “technologies” can pull carbon from the sky via photosynthesis and secure it in the earth’s “vault” where it can be converted into productive soils.

We know that we need to actively remove carbon from our atmosphere; mitigation alone (i.e., reducing carbon footprints) will not be enough. The creation of a digital currency (a so-called “stablecoin”), which would be backed by solidified and safely-sequestered carbon that has been “mined” by a global army of prospectors, could serve as a vital step in this removal process. Based on the arguments we make below we believe that such a currency is possible and that providing it would activate a broad swath of hopeful people who are already motivated to fight climate change but have felt largely powerless to do so. Instead of feeling hopeless as they watch governments and industries continually fail to solve our looming crisis, the introduction of a new currency and new technology would, we argue, be able to meaningfully contribute to a global solution." (http://www.publicseminar.org/2019/09/more-precious-than-gold/)