The metaverse that breaks down the environmental impact of NFTs
The online universe embraces a new revolutionary technology that would reduce emissions related to the energy consumption necessary to create, sell, register NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain
The worldwide boom in the Non-Fungible Token market has alerted the community of environmentalists, worried about the impact this rapidly expanding new technology causes: according to some studies, the creation and sale of a single NFT would cost an average of 282 kWh of energy. , equal to 289 kg of Co2 emitted into the atmosphere to produce it, while each subsequent transaction would consume 52 kWh, equivalent to 30 kg of Co2.
Despite these numbers being discussed in the scientific community and under constant review, it is clear that the success of digital object transactions, which have now exploded not only in the video game market, but also in the Crypto Art market, could soon add further suffering to the planet already strained by global industry emissions.
Precisely for this reason The Sandbox, the online universe that allows videogame creators, brands, artists and commercial companies, to create 3D virtual worlds and experiences of various kinds, through the purchase and sale of plots of digital land. and various types of objects that fall precisely into the category of NFTs, has chosen to tackle the problem by marrying a new technology called Immutable X.
This solution would allow to guarantee the registrations on the Ethereum blockchain, to which the NFTs of The Sandbox are linked, compressing the information necessary for the registration itself and consequently reducing the computational effort and the consequent energy consumption required for each single transaction: it has been calculated that using this new technology for the creation of 8 million trading cards of the Gods Unchained video game would reduce consumption from 490 million kWh to just 1030 kWh, with an energy saving equal to 475 thousand times less.
This solution would thus make it possible to increase the scope of the NFT market, leaving the energy consumption and the consequent environmental impact unchanged, which will in any case be completely eliminated by the company itself, through carbon offsetting carried out through donations for all companies which, as The Sandbox, will base their marketplace on its technology.
An initiative that in fact in the near future will bring to zero the ecological cost of every creation and transaction of Non-Fungible Token.
“Our vision is to create through The Sandbox a metaverse that brings together creators and players within a persistent virtual world” says the COO and co-founder of the company Sebastien Borget “but we take into enormous consideration the requests for the protection of the environment. The Sandbox intends to work hard to solve these problems by creating a virtual world populated with digital objects that is also sustainable from an environmental point of view ”.
For this reason, the metaverse studies the implementation of a software solution that will provide for direct and immediate donation, aimed at carbon offsetting, for each NFT creation and transaction.
