Enjin joins Crypto Climate Accord, goes carbon negative

The cryptocurrency industry uses approximately 150 TWh of electricity annually, which is more than Poland, Norway, Egypt or Sweden, the company said.

Enjin, a blockchain gaming and nonfungible token platform, has stepped up to decarbonize its footprint by joining the Crypto Climate Accord, a move that adds further credibility to the industry’s growing environmental mandate. 

The Crypto Climate Accord is backed by 20 firms from the blockchain, fin-tech and greentech industries. Inspired by the 195-signatory Paris Climate Agreement, the Accord was established in April to address the “large and growing energy consumption of cryptocurrency and blockchain, and the climate impact of their energy use.”

Enjin claims that its JumpNet blockchain has already achieved carbon-negative status nine years ahead of schedule. In March, the company said it planned to enable carbon-neutral NFTs by 2030.

“The creation of new forms of technology should never come at the cost of destroying our environment,” said Enjin CEO Maxim Blagov. “Carbon neutrality for JumpNet is an important step toward our vision of a sustainable NFT ecosystem for Enjin and our partners.”

In addition to decarbonizing newly created tokens, Enjin’s environmental sustainability plan includes supporting the tokenization of the physical economy and decarbonizing existing digital assets. Other measures include upgrading to carbon-neutral nodes and incentivizing carbon reduction technologies.

Environmental concerns have virtually hijacked Bitcoin’s narrative this year, with the likes of Elon Musk casting shade over carbon-intensive mining. The Tesla CEO briefly embraced Bitcoin earlier this year before deciding that BTC payments are no longer acceptable due to environmental risks. Now, he states that his firm is willing to accept payments of the virtual currency, provided there’s more evidence for sustainable mining.

Related: Elon Musk lays out when Tesla will begin accepting Bitcoin payments

Other environmental sustainability efforts within crypto are also underway. As Cointelegraph reported, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’ Gemini exchange has purchased carbon credits to reduce Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. Separately, U.S. miner Stronghold Digital Miner recently announced that it raised $105 million to divert waste coal to cryptocurrency mining.