Regenerative Finance: How Crypto-Powered Tools are Shaping a More Ethical Future
ReFi leverages blockchain to help projects to tackle real world problems, intertwining regenerative economics with principles of the free market to foster sustainable impact and economic prosperity.
UETH recently sat down with Jimi Cohen to discuss Blockchain as a Vehicle for Positive Climate Action. The founder and CEO of Treegens, Jimi’s movement to mobilize the most transparent and community-rewarding tree planting program to fight climate change. The Guinness Tree Planting World Champion talked about the game-changing power of Regenerative Finance (ReFi) including:
How ReFi combines principles of the free market and income generation with the inclusion of all stakeholders, regardless of financial influence, to create and fund programs addressing complex social challenges.
The powerful crypto tools that provide a level of scalability, inclusion, transparency, accountability, and fundraising not seen in traditional activism.
How Treegens puts theory into action by implementing ReFi elements to launch their largest tree planting project to date.
Regenerative Finance: Engineering Financial Tools to Harness Money for Good
In the era of blockchain technology, a growing movement in cryptography known as Regenerative Finance (ReFi), is gaining traction. ReFi presents a compelling financial paradigm that aims to address pressing environmental and social challenges while also generating economic value for stakeholders. Unlike traditional finance, ReFi also promotes inclusivity, allowing broader participation in decision-making regarding public goods funding.
Source: What is ReFi? (Toucan)
Proponents of the ReFi movement point to the dilutive, exclusive, and extractive nature of the traditional economic system that have exacerbated environmental destruction, social inequality, and financial instability.
Source: What is ReFi? (Toucan)
Innovating with ReFi: Tools and Strategies for Positive Impact
At its core, ReFi aims to motivate communities to tackle systemic challenges by intertwining regenerative economics with the principles of the free market. It creates a unique ecosystem where the pursuit of social impact goes hand-in-hand with financial gain, enabling both individuals and organizations to focus on actions that yield dual benefits: tangible positive societal impacts and economic profits.
To realize these objectives, ReFi utilizes a range of blockchain tools to implement change:
Tokenization: Converts tangible assets, like reforestation land, into digital tokens for ownership, tradeable on blockchain for easier, transparent, and fractional ownership, lowering entry barriers.
Crowdfunding: Empowers community-driven support for ReFi projects through token purchases or donations, democratizing investment and decision-making.
Smart Contracts: Automate and enforce agreements and sustainability commitments with code-based contracts, enhancing governance transparency.
Impact Incentives: Reward sustainable practices with tokens or benefits, encouraging clean energy use and carbon reduction.
Transparency and Accountability: Records all transactions on the blockchain for full visibility, building trust and ensuring proper fund allocation.
Quadratic Funding: Matches donations based on donor count, not amount, promoting community-backed projects and diverse stakeholder engagement.
Treegens: Bringing ReFi Principles to Life
In the practical application of ReFi, Treegens stands out as an example. Spearheaded by Jimi Cohen, who set a world record by planting 25,244 mangrove trees in just 21.5 hours, Treegens aims to transcend this achievement by targeting a new record: surpassing the 355 million trees planted by environmentalists in Ethiopia. This ambitious goal underscores the synergy between human effort and ReFi tools in environmental conservation.
Leveraging ReFi's innovative toolbox, Jimi and the Treegens team have adopted a strategic approach to scale their reforestation efforts:
Tokenization through $MGRO: Mangrove trees are tokenized with $MGRO, a digital currency issued via a Proof of Plant system. Participants in the Treegens movement earn $MGRO for their contributions to tree planting, verified by an AI-powered tree counter and overseen by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
AI Verification and Eco-Credit Retirement: A digital AI tree counter accurately tallies each tree planted, providing contributors with clear, transparent updates. This process culminates in the burning of $MGRO tokens, an incentive mechanism that signifies the effective retirement of eco-credits, while rewarding early holders by increasing the scarcity of $MGRO.
Innovative NFTs for Growth Tracking: Treegens is developing a Dynamic Semi-Soulbound Token (DSST) NFT, a novel concept that evolves and advances in response to the number of trees planted and the funds raised, further incentivizing participation and investment in reforestation.
DAO Governance with TGN: TGN tokens facilitate governance participation in Treegen DAO, where biannual health checks secure the long-term integrity of planting projects. This governance model promotes community-led expansion of tree planting, significantly enhancing regeneration efforts and eco-credit rewards.
Through these initiatives, Treegens exemplifies how ReFi can be harnessed to foster significant environmental impact, blending cutting-edge finance tools with the collective power of community for global regeneration.
ReFi: Pioneering a Sustainable and Inclusive Financial Future
Despite being an emerging field, ReFi shows promising growth potential, driven by increasing global awareness, expanding markets, technological advancements, and supportive policies. Amidst this burgeoning landscape of innovative projects, this innovative approach to finance is poised to address critical global challenges by advocating for systemic changes that go beyond conventional methods.
Source: Regenerative Web 3 (Gitcoin)
Leveraging blockchain technology for its vast applications across various sectors, ReFi excels in aligning incentives with tangible, measurable outcomes. It proposes a radical shift in finance, focusing on what projects get funded, who benefits, and the mechanisms of benefit distribution. ReFi's ethos is to disrupt traditional financial paradigms, foster community involvement in governance, and support positive-sum solutions to complex issues.
For projects committed to sustainability, ReFi offers a harmonious alignment with their goals, promising a future where finance serves a broader range of stakeholders. It heralds a transformative era of financial inclusivity and sustainability, offering immense potential for increased prosperity among all participants.
Get involved
Watch the full Workshop + student Q&A here.
Tell us what you think on Discord or Twitter.
Engage with our workshop guest on X: @JimiCohen and @thetreegens
Want to learn more about ReFi? Check out this reading list we curated:
Excited about Vitalik Buterin and etherium decentrilised computing, I had a great ethical experience with UETH during EDCON 2023. I found some quests there who helped me a lot in our try to trace stolen funds
Also I engaged in retrodrop and wallet mint activities. And they very disapoint me. The frontend of the exercise was problematic, with lags and unresponsive feedback sections. The university's lack of response mirrored typical crypto companies, neglecting response and consumer protection. Ethereum Foundation's trajectory seems to favor not just elitism, but also jeopardizing its role as a good alighment organization
While UETH may not be entirely bad, it falls short of being good. Consumer feedback about frontend and in smart-contract is ignored, and winning strategies favor in-house players, reminiscent of scam gambling platforms. It's not enough to find winning strategy because UETH could just not paid your winning. The promise to plant trees excitment but doesn't compensate for the dissatisfaction caused by ignored error reports and unpaid winnings and do not keeping their word. And most likely everything will only get worse with growing of UETH size. I met a lot of high IQ tech eth enthusiasts that much clever than me but High IQ is not enough to be good
A call for a more ethically model or effective information processing system resonates, aiming for safe and responsible crypto gambling for it's costumers. In the era of decentralized computing and potential dangers from GAI alighment and possible quantum hacking of weak Jsons, responsibility and rise of good ethic is paramount. Hope you will become good!