Akorn Regenerative Marketplace
Perpetually Incentivizing Actions that Increase and Maintain Native Ecosystems.
Currently Regenerative Marketplaces
Narrowly Focused on Carbon Credits
Currently actions that increase and maintain native ecosystems are incentivized to do so primarily through carbon credits. However, these actions often have beneficial impacts in more ecosystem services than just carbon sequestration.
One time Measurement and Verification
The measurement and verification of these actions are often done only one time. Over time the cumulative impacts to ecosystem services from these actions add up and are unable to be assessed accurately in one pass over.
Lack of Community Standards
The assessment methodologies for regenerative actions are often controlled by a centralized organization. This organization says if the assessment technique is appropriate or not often without seeking continual community feedback. This feedback is not only necessary for ensuring that the assessment technique is appropriate but also for social equity and participation.
Economic incentives
Once a carbon credit is paid for and paid for, often the organization or individual that the money goes to does not receive continued support. In order for the organization or individual to continue to carry out sustainable actions, they need to be continually incentivized.
Inconsistent valuation with no value exchange possible
The different regenerative activities and their benefits to the world are inconsistently valued. This makes it hard for people to realize what regenerative activity should be done, where, and at what time period. Funders of regenerative activities primarily receive carbon credits in return for funding the regenerative action. This lacks the ability to show impact on soil health, water quality, and other ecosystem service benefits. Without credits for each of these ecosystem benefits one cannot exchange the carbon credits for soil health credits etc.
To sum this all up, the ability to sustainably coordinate, monitor, and incentivize multiple ecosystem-specific regenerative activities in a unified manner, at a global scale,
does not exist…
What We Are Proposing Is
A regenerative marketplace that sustainably coordinates, monitors, and incentivizes multiple ecosystem-specific regenerative activities in a unified manner, at a global scale.
Beyond Carbon Credits
This regenerative marketplace pays for the activity to be done, it’s focus is not on the additional benefits from that action such as carbon sequestration. Once an activity is paid for, a permanent digital record of this is created. This record contains information about the activity, the measurement and verification methods, and funding amount channeled towards the activity. The record can be sold as is, without the action it paid for being measured and verified. The holder of this record could also wait for the action to become measured and verified. After that, they can hold it or wait longer. If they wait longer, data on the additional benefits from this action will accumulate; such as data about the actions impact on carbon sequestration, soil health, water quality, etc. This data can increase the value of that digital record, NFT.
Continued Measurement and Verification
By continually assessing the impacts of the regenerative actions, a more accurate estimation on impact to carbon, soil, etc. is able to be delivered. These impacts accumulate over time. This marketplace would pay for automated measurement and verification techniques to be carried out for the regenerative actions. These techniques could include satellite imagery, smart technology (sensors), and or boots on the ground.
Constantly Seeking Community Feedback
The entire marketplace would be run by DAOs. A global governance DAO as well as different sector DAOs (such as forest, ocean, tundra, etc.). Sector DAOs would be composed of leading scientific experts. When a implementer of a regenerative action wants to get funding to implement the action they would propose it to Akorn. This proposal would include what the action is, where it would be implemented, how the action would be measured and verified, and the cost for the implementer to implement that action. The DAO(s) would then vote to determine if that action is appropriate, if the area of implementation is a priority, if the cost is correct, and that the measurement and verification techniques adhere to community standards. As new actions are proposed, more measurement and verification techniques can be created and updated to work with community standards. By quantifying the priority areas for action implementation according to community feedback, these actions can have more equitable social impact.
Perpetual Funding
The digital record containing information about regenerative actions can be traded in an NFT marketplace or the NFT itself can be traded in a marketplace for tokens. Each time the NFT (or tokens) is traded a percentage of that trade goes towards accumulating resources. These resources are then channeled back to further support the implementers of the regenerative action to implement more actions. This provides continued support for the implementers we onboard onto the marketplace.
Cross Benefit Exchanging and Appropriate Valuation Determined by the Market
Once an action is verified to have been completed, the additional benefits from that action start to accrue. An NFT holds information about these benefits and the action itself. At any point in time the holder of that NFT can exchange it for tokens. These tokens are based on the action itself (100 trees recorded planted: 100 tree tokens) or the additional benefits from that action (carbon sequestered, soil nutrients retained, etc.). These tokens are able to be traded in the wider crypto marketplace and from this have a value as determined by the market.
Grant Deliverables: (Provide us with a check-boxed list of deliverables for the funding provided.)
- A Spatial Monitoring System Capable of Analyzing Data Produced in Near Real Time
- Integration of Open Source Ecosystem Service Analysis Tools Into the Monitoring System
Which category best describes your project? Pick one.
- Build / improve applications or integrations to Ocean
Which Fundamental Metric best describes your project? Pick one.
- Data Consume Volume
What is the final product?:
In order to analyze if regenerative actions have been implemented and the benefits from these actions, a global open source artificially intelligent cloud computing monitoring system needs to be developed. The initial creation of this monitoring system will be using satellite imagery. We will collaborate with Astraea in the creation of this monitoring system. We will incorporate ecosystem service valuation tools from the Natural Capital Project as well as other open source tools. Once this monitoring system is created we will work with marketplace partners to carry out the first measurement and verification of a regenerative action, as well as the benefits from them.
Success from this grant will be measured from the creation of the monitoring system. A successful grant use would be able to create the monitoring system to the phases mentioned above. The risks in executing this grant are time and partnership related. We would like for each of the open source tools we use to be open to us integrating it into the monitoring system. It will take time and energy to connect these partners and uniting them in the monitoring system. The development of the monitoring system will be led by Astraea. It might require substantial time from them to integrate the open source tools into the monitoring system.
How does this project drive value to the “fundamental metric” (listed above) and the overall Ocean ecosystem? This is best expressed as Expected ROI, details here.
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Usage of Ocean
Our spatial monitoring system will integrate any available data from Ocean into it. Along with this we will be integrating existing spatial data into the marketplace to be used by other Ocean community members. -
Adding value to the overall community
Ocean having its name tied to environmental projects, has the ability to increase the investors and other community members in Ocean
Funding Requested: (Amount of USD your team is requesting - see the available funding levels here)
USD $3,000
PLEASE NOTE: The amount requested is in USD, but the amount paid is in OCEAN token. The conversion rate is the market price on the given Round’s Proposal Due By Deadline. This determines how many OCEAN will be awarded if a proposal is voted to receive a grant.
Proposal Wallet Address: (must have minimum 500 OCEAN in wallet to be eligible. This wallet is where you will receive the grant amount if selected).
0xF40b005FFE2Db0197b8c301e1C966C2cb3B59A08
Have you previously received an OceanDAO Grant (Y/N)?
No
Team Website (if applicable):
https://www.treetable.org/hardwood
Twitter Handle (if applicable):
https://twitter.com/HStablecoin
Discord Handle (if applicable):
Project lead Contact Email:
Country of Residence:
United States
Part 2 - Team
Core Team
For each team member, give their name, role and background such as the following.
T.R. Price
- Role: lead of ecosystem design, spatial analyst
- Relevant Credentials (e.g.): Masters in Environmental Studies Sustainable Development and Climate Change has worked for 10 years in the Environment and Spatial Analysis. Published Author in Ecosystem Services, Honorable mention from the Global Trinity Challenge for a spatial surveillance system that related the environment to human health.
-
Background/Experience:
- Co-founder of Treetable LLC
- Can Find More Credentials at: TRP Resume.pdf - Google Drive
Advisers
Victor Cucos
- Role: Lead of Strategy and Ideation Trajectories
- Relevant Credentials (e.g.): Executive with a strong track record of value creation and P/L performance offering a perfect blend of strategy and execution - from whiteboard ideation to making trains run on time. Passionate about the transformative power of DLT/Blockchain in Decentralized Finance applications. Skeptic-In-Chief and trusted mentor to brilliant tech startups. - Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management - MBA and B.Sc Engineering. I speak Hyperledger and Solidity and conduct academic-level research in decentralized governance models and their inherent epistemic agency problems.
Marcos Da Silva
- Role: Lead of Technology Incorporation
- Relevant Credentials (e.g.): Google Cloud Engineer. Experienced technologist with tremendous problem solving skills. I have extensive experience working many segments of industry, including financial services, insurance, healthcare, retail, etc. I’m a strong business development professional, with a keen eye towards how technology can be used to solve business problems. I have an MBA focused on Strategy, from University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management.
Touffi Saliba
- Role: Lead of Automation and AI
-
Relevant Credentials (e.g.): Author TODA/IP internet protocol. CEO Toda.Network
Global Chair IEEE AI Standards. Served as Chair ACM PB CC, ACM 100,000 members #1 in computer science globally. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Loves algorithms, cryptography, BFT/ADG Autonomous Decentralized Governance, Distributed Computing, Machine Learning, Game Theory and AI in general.
Project Deliverables - Category:
- App will be live, at: https://www.akornmarketplace.org/
- Project can be found (with permissive license if necessary) at: GitHub - TerexitariusStomp/Avano: Regenerative Marketplace
- Data will be made available on Ocean Market
If the project includes software:
- Are there any mockups or designs to date?
The existing spatial analysis system that would be used is able to be found at https://astraea.earth/
- An overview of the technology stack?
Astraea has used RasterFrames in code for creating their geospatial artificial intelligence (AI) platform, EarthAI. EarthAI has been used by big name companies for global AI analysis. Astraea’s EarthAI uses Amazon Web Services for its computational power and is able to use other cloud computing networks. EarthAI has the ability to handle Python, SQL and other coding languages. EarthAI is connected to petabytes of global data from NASA, MAXAR and has the ability to connect to more data sources as needed (such as disease data; WHO or CDC). Through already developed filters, cloud cover can be minimized and certain dates retrieved. The filter data is used as reference when training models
Project Deliverables - Roadmap
Last of Q4 2021
Partnership Establishments
Technology Partners
DAO Partners
Establishment of Legal Entity
IDO Preparation
Q1 2022
Launch of IDO
MVP Technology
Monitoring System Georeferenced Photos
DAOs
Know Your Customer Enrollment
Artist Partners
Q2 2022
Onboarding of First Implementers
Monitoring System Integration of Smart Technology
DAO Deciding
Creation of NFT Record
Proven Monitoring System
Hosting of NFT in Marketplace
Q3 2022
Continual Funding for Implementers
Creation of Immediate NFTs from Available Action Supply
Token Creation from NFTs
Use of NFTS+ Tokens for Environmental Impact Offsets
Integration With At Least One Other Cryptocurrency Chain
Q4 2022
Cross Chain Implementation to Most Active Chains
Gamification of Monitoring System
Established Partnerships with Artists
Assessment of Larger Ecosystems
Publishing of Research Based on DAO and Monitoring System Thoughts
- Any prior work completed thus far?
An MVP for this marketplace has been launched on the Polygon Chain under the name SaveTrees. This project was launched with only a couple hundred dollars for total project funding. SaveTrees helped 7 other cryptocurrency organizations to plant over 4,500 certified trees over the course of two months. Along with that it grew from a liquidity of USD $20 to a liquidity of over $15,000. It now has over 600 holders and has established partnerships with multiple cryptocurrency organizations. The telegram channel has 250 members.
Additional Information
No grants or fundraising has happened to date.