This edition of the weekly NFT blog focuses on sustainability, an increasingly important topic for everyone involved in the NFT space.
Historically, consensus mechanisms such as Proof of Work (PoW) used in Bitcoin mining expend high levels of energy and therefore produce significant carbon emissions. While BTC has brought unquestionable value to the world, technology continues to evolve and there are newer options for reaching consensus.
The Stratisphere platform was designed with energy-efficiency as a key value from day one. That’s why Proof-of-Authority (PoA) was chosen as the basis for the Cirrus sidechain (blockchain), a design that considerably reduces the energy consumption associated with NFTs. PoA is turn based consensus mechanism that incentivises node operators to maintain a high reputation so as not to lose their spot to validate a transaction, but it doesn’t require CPU-intensive mining common in PoW.
Last month, we delved deeper into the topic of sustainability on this blog when Stratis joined forces with Paolo Taticchi, Professor in Strategy and Sustainability at UCL, to create the ‘NFT Sustainability Manifesto’, a guide for companies looking to incorporate NFTs sustainably. Professor Taticchi even took to Italian television this week to discuss how sustainable marketers can align environmental responsibility with the use of NFTs.
Last week also marked the launch of the NFT for the ‘NFT Sustainability Manifesto’ which you can find here on Stratisphere.