Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange from the Winklevoss brothers, launches the Gemini Green program aimed at reducing the negative impact of cryptocurrencies on the environment.
Recall that this problem, actively promoted by Elon Musk, became a hot topic for discussion this spring. Due to serious criticism of the cryptocurrency, the price of Bitcoin has more than doubled in recent months. The new Gemini initiative should raise public awareness of the issue and improve the reputation of blockchain-based coins.
By tradition, let’s start with an explanation. The topic of the environmental friendliness of Bitcoin mining was raised by Elon Musk. His company Tesla refused to accept cryptocurrency as payment due to the fact that mining and maintaining the BTC network requires too many resources, and electricity is consumed for this benefit from non-renewable sources.
This caused a wave of negativity towards Bitcoin, but Tesla did not get rid of its cryptocurrency savings. Moreover, it is ready to resume accepting BTC after the share of clean energy in its mining exceeds the conditional 50 percent. This was also stated by Elon Musk.
However, major representatives of the cryptocurrency industry decided not to wait and began to fix the reputation of the coin niche on their own. In this case, Gemini does the same.
The fight for the environment in the world of cryptocurrencies
Gemini has partnered with Climate Vault, a non-profit organization run by the University of Chicago. In the announcement, the exchange said it acquired over $ 4 million in carbon permits to offset the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network between January 1 and June 30 this year.
A carbon permit, sometimes called a carbon credit, is a “pass” that allows companies to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The more a company pollutes the environment, the more loans it needs to offset these emissions. It also creates an incentive to reduce the negative impact on the environment on its part, according to Decrypt. If a company produces less hazardous substances than its permits allow, it can resell the permits for profit.
By launching its climate protection initiative, Gemini is following in the footsteps of other major crypto exchanges like BitMEX and FTX, which also began offsetting their carbon emissions last month. According to the marketplace, its average daily Bitcoin balance this year is 250,843 BTC, or more than $ 8.4 billion at today’s cryptocurrency price. That is, the exchange uses approximately 1.43 percent of the first cryptocurrency network .
We checked the current data: the largest BTC wallet belongs to the Binance exchange, it contains 299 thousand bitcoins, or the equivalent of $ 9.5 billion. This amount translates into 1.6 percent of all issued BTC on the cryptocurrency network. Other exchanges in the top 10 richest Bitcoin wallets include Bitfinex, Huobi and OKEX.
Richest Bitcoin Addresses
The $ 4 million Gemini donated to the Climate Vault in exchange for carbon permits is believed to prevent more than 340,000 metric tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere , or «the equivalent of nearly 1.6 billion kilometers traveled by a typical passenger car.»
In addition, Gemini said it will support companies, projects and non-profit organizations focused on increasing the resilience of the crypto industry. As part of this part of the initiative, she has donated a million dollars to the Gemini Opportunity Fund, a donor fund originally set up to support Bitcoin Core developers.
Winklevoss brothers
We believe that this initiative should positively affect the image of cryptocurrency companies in the eyes of investors outside the cryptosphere. The issue of environmental protection is becoming more acute in different industries, and the fact that Gemini does not ignore it creates a credit of trust for the exchange from customers. The Bitcoin network does consume a lot of electricity, most of which comes from environmentally harmful power plants, so trying to compensate for the negative impact of the crypt on the world is a clear plus for Gemini’s karma. The same applies to the very first cryptocurrency and the coin niche in general.
