Bringing Green NFTs to the Music Industry with Tezos
OneOf is a new “Green” platform for non fungible tokens, or NFTs, built for the music community that helps connect artists directly to their fans. Built on the Tezos blockchain, an energy efficient proof-of-stake network, minting an NFT on OneOf uses 2M times less energy than platforms built on Ethereum. Minting 3 NFTs on OneOf creates the carbon footprint the weight of a snowflake vs 900 lbs in carbon emissions from similar platforms built on Ethereum. OneOf further subsidizes the low transaction fees of the Tezos blockchain so NFT “minting” costs are $0 for artists, which allows them to make their NFTs available at price points much more affordable to the average fans, as little as $1, or even free.
The digital assets industry has exploded over the last year. A vital characteristic of popular tradeable currency is its fungibility. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are fully fungible, meaning each token is equally valuable and practically indistinguishable from another. If a currency were non-fungible, each transaction would require the buyer and the seller to agree on each token’s value.
However, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique tokens that are never exactly the same. This opens up all kinds of use cases. NFTs have gained international acclaim for games like crypto kitties, trading cards like NBA Top Shots, and an explosion of artists monetize their digital art work, which previously was difficult to “authenticate” before NFT technology, which can be used as a proof of true ownership of any items, digital or beyond.
NFTs And The Environment
Non-fungible tokens allow artists to monetize their digital work like never before. For the first time artists can assign real value to their art that otherwise would have been commoditized through traditional methods of digital distribution and social sharing. NFTs also allows for a host of new monetization possibilities, including shared commissions, resale royalties, and breaking down other barriers set by traditional institutions.
Non-fungible tokens foster new ecosystems for engagement between creators and their audiences. However, some of the most popular NFT technology today built on blockchains such as Ethereum is not sustainable for the environment in the long run, and embracing a more “green” method of delivering NFTs won’t just benefit artists and fans, but the planet at large.
Early generation blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on “Proof-of-Work” consensus algorithm, which requires highly specialized computers or “miners” to solve complex mathematical puzzles in order to earn the right or privilege to create the next “block” which pays out a fee or reward to the miner. The unintended consequence was a global arms race of computer server farms competing for mining rewards consuming an astonishing amount of energy. Estimates suggest Ethereum’s annual energy consumption stands at around 49.9TWh, comparable to the country of Peru, and the carbon footprint of 23.7 megatons, comparable to the country of Sri Lanka. A single transaction on Ethereum such as creating or “minting” an NFT takes the energy equivalent of powering an average U.S. household for over 3.6 days.
Designed to solve both Proof-of-Work’s insane energy demand as well as its scalability bottlenecks, the next-generation Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm does not require heavy computational puzzles to be solved in order to validate a transaction, thus far more energy efficient, and much better suited for many blockchain applications including NFTs. Non-fungible tokens built on Proof-of-Stake networks have a drastically lower impact on the environment, and with NFTs growing ever more popular, the smart contract-enabled PoS blockchains such as Tezos could be Ethereum’s biggest competition. With its significantly lower gas costs and the ability to mint, host, and trade NFTs with ease, many creators have already made the conscious decision to move their work to PoS blockchain based platforms, with number of NFT transactions rising sharply on Tezos blockchain in the month of May, rivaling even the biggest NFT platforms on Ethereum.
Annually, it is estimated that Tezos validators or ‘bakers’ consume around 60MWh with a continuous draw of fewer than seven kilowatts — almost two million times less than Ethereum. Its low carbon footprint enables developers to create innovative applications without compromising sustainability and Tezos’ blockchain’s unique ability to “self-amend ‘’ allows it to upgrade without a “hard-fork”, and stay on top of evolving trends and innovations in the blockchain space.
Tezos recently launched Florence, its sixth major upgrade, in early May — just three months after the previous key upgrade, Edo. The network also recently reported surpassing 1.3 million contract calls in April, which is a significant increase fueled by NFT projects on the blockchain, signifying broader adoption and increasing. With blockchains, every transaction is a sign of trust in the network, and as artists and collectors begin to understand how much better Tezos is for their NFT needs, the world of digital art could soon become a lot cleaner.
After two plus years of R&D, OneOf has selected Tezos to build its revolutionary NFT platform on, with the aim to authentically connect artists and fans, and doing so in an environmentally sustainable way.
