Decentralized Environmental Offsets NFTs (Akorn DAO)

TLDR

Akorn DAO is creating a regenerative NFT marketplace (DAO managed) for incentivizing actions that increase and maintain native ecosystems (ie. tree planting). This marketplace would act both as a crowdfunding platform to get support for regenerative actions, as well as a NFT art marketplace. Our goal with this marketplace is to create decentralized environmental offsets supported with art. These offsets would help to support the increase of value of these NFTs over time as the valued ecosystem service benefits are measured and verified to increase. The main founder has a history working in spatial valuation of ecosystem services and is backed by a group of fantastic individuals including but not limited to a Google Cloud Engineer, a head in the IEEE for AI, and the chief strategy officer of 3commas.

Problem / Opportunity

Currently regenerative marketplaces are very focused on carbon credits and lack detailed information on benefits to soil, water, and other air components, etc. In many regenerative marketplaces the benefits are only measured once and lack detailed information as to how these benefits accrue over time. By using open source methodologies (and collaboration) for collecting data and analyzing it, we can transparently create immutable data records of these benefits. After a traditional environmental offset is paid for, it does not offer continued financial support for the entity to continue to do regenerative actions. By ingraining and environmental offset into an NFT we can transfer royalties to the regenerative entity to support them in the maintenance cost of the action as well as the ability to continue to expand their beneficial impact. 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…

Funding Milestones and Payments

Funding Achieved to Date:

Around USD$25,000 from [Gitcoin grant ]

A commitment of around $200,000 from a key technology partner

Support Requested from Rarible

Note: Proposers should deliver on something before asking for payment, which is a common practice in other DAO communities like Yearn. What is delivered as a first milestone is flexible and will depend on the project! This could include: designs, a demo, a detailed execution plan, etc.

Milestones & payments:

  • Phase 1: An Akorn wiki detailing initial thoughts on DAO and marketplace creation, a Discord that is able to incentivize a decentralized community to work to achieve a shared vision, an intro video pitch of what the first ideas from Akorn DAO are, maintaining an active twitter account to get community traction + $10,000 + ASAP
  • Phase 2: We will hire developers to implement the Rarible protocol for marketplace creation (expecting some developers of Rarible would be interested), the initial marketplace will be created and the NFT contracts starting to be solidified- USD$20,000 + March 2022
  • Phase 3: The NFT contracts are tied to Ceramic and Chainlink oracles that relay data from regenerative actions an initial IOT sensor project will serve as the test to make sure these contracts work before official launch USD$50,000 + Mid March 2022
  • Phase 4: the creation of dynamic assessment methodologies via satellite imagery (from Shamba), and creation of an app from Data Union/ Protocol Gemini for on the ground georeferenced imagery collection of these actions, the creation of an initial onboarding process for users of this. USD$70,000 + April 2022
  • Phase 5: The marketing of platform launch and support from Rarible for the creation of this marketplace, further development of marketplace and the development of a minting protocol that can be used to support regenerative actions when NFTs are minted from other marketplaces. USD$80,000 + May 2022

Total payment: USD$230,000, complete upon delivery of phases.

Payments will be made to the following Ethereum address: eth:0xE153407b0f0e3d554403d0473DB7d332698B1aFA

We consider ourselves independent contractors of the Rarible DAO and will report taxes accordingly. Forms W8-BEN and W9 will be filled out accordingly before funds get distributed to our team.

Use of funds

Funds will be used to hire a designer, and pay myself to work 10 hours / week for managing the project

  • Phase 1:

We will use these funds to hire ScibeDAO or someone similar to revise the Akorn wiki and make it into a more comprehensible state. $2,000 total

We will hire coders to improve our Discord and ensure that incentive mechanisms work. $1,000

We will hire a video maker to make a better video of an intro to Akorn. $3,000

We will use this as a starting salary for a community manager. $4,000

  • Phase 2:

We will hire developers to implement the Rarible protocol for marketplace creation USD$20,000

  • Phase 3:

We will hire developers to link Ceramic and Chainlink oracles with data from regenerative actions and feeding that into NFT contracts $25,000

We will pay for an initial experiment of collecting IOT sensor data in Paraguay in a reforestation project and linking this data to the NFT contracts $25,000

  • Phase 4:

We will pay Shamba to link a dynamic assessment methodology via satellite imagery for carbon sequestration to the NFT contracts $50,000

We will pay for the creation of a cellular application that is able to collect the on the ground perimeter of impact for a regenerative action as well as georeferenced imagery of this action $20,000

  • Phase 5:

We will pay marketers to get the word about this marketplace out and how Rarible helped in the creation of this marketplace $20,000

We will hire developers to further improve the marketplace $10,000

We will hire developers to develop a minting protocol that can become part of Rarible Protocol and other marketplaces to support regenerative actions $50,000

Business Model

We do not take a percent of any of the money that the implementing organizations (those that plant trees etc.) gather from this platform. Instead we make money through transaction fees within this NFT marketplace. We are also investigating additional revenue sources such as: marketing of featured projects where people can pay to have their NFT featured, Pay Per (Look, Watch, Listen) of the NFTs data, whether visual or audio. Creating reserve lists so that artists can choose to curate who is eligible to buy their art, as well as memberships for businesses to offer membership benefits to holders of certain NFTs.

We aim for what we develop to be open source with an MIT license.

Team Members

T.R. Price is the lead for this grant application. T.R. has received global honorable mention from the Trinity Challenge, part of MIT Solve, for a solution proposal that related the environment to human health via satellite imagery. GIS is his specialization. He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and has worked in the environmental field for over 10 years. Along with GIS the valuation of ecosystem services is one of his strengths.

Victor Cucos

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. Chief Strategy Officer of one of the largest AI/ML cryptocurrency trading platforms, 3commas.

Marcos Da Silva

Experienced technologist with tremendous problem solving skills. I have extensive experience working in 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.

Touffi Saliba

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.

The contact person for this project will be T.R. Price. Their contact information is hardwoodstablecoin@gmail.com and their Discord handle is Terexitarius#4750

Our team has worked on this project for the last 4 months together.

Accountability

Our project will attend weekly community calls, and provide updates on our milestones as we make progress. In the event that we can’t fulfill our commitment, funds will be returned to Rarible DAO. We will also work with community members to ensure updates are distributed through the Rarible communication channels.

Why should Rarible DAO fund this?

By Rarible DAO supporting an environmental project, the Rarible community will be able to attract entities that are concerned about the environment. It will show the seriousness of adoption and support of such practices creating a mass influx of customers buying NFTs that are related to Rarible. By having us as a member of your community you can show a step to your commitment to environmental sustainability into the future.

Useful Links & Media

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I am also supporting recycled and sustainability and this sounds extremely appealing to me. Can you be more specific in what the DAO has in mind to do? Only to plant trees? For instance, my project Asknights is mainly focused on recycled art (making new art from something old, be it physically or digitally).

I also have some recycled/regenerative art wishing to sell, from 2018-2020 when I was doing research in contemporary, digital art, sustainability and circular economy. Was thinking to do it via Asknights marketplace but if your marketplace tackles better and is more efficient in solving that specific issue, sure, why not go with you.

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