Confluence at Art Basel Miami 2022 : The intersection of climate change and cryptocurrency.
How do we redesign money and heal the earth? On November 30th, Thirsty Thirsty and Phocus Creative Group collaborated on a sharing of knowledge around new financial markets and the impacts of climate change at the newly opened Life House Hotel, South Of Fifth. Innovators in the climate and web3 spaces came together to discuss wins and fears around emergent blockchain infrastructures. How do we build to support a truly green economy rather than continue to be extractive. We asked hard questions and ideated together on how to build regenerative solutions
The current state
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in September warned that cryptocurrency mining operations could hinder the country’s ability to mitigate climate change due to their necessity to be powered by our current electricity grid. However the recent Ethereum blockchain upgrade promises to enhance the network and reduce energy consumption. It’s been proven that proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms are more environmentally friendly than proof-of-work consensus mechanisms.
So what’s next? We’ve only just begun to uncover the power of what cryptocurrency can do and accomplish. In it’s current state people are wondering how do we get out of the energy crisis we are in a sustainable / non extractive way and work with young and earth conscious investors towards a regenerative financial market and energy market for a better future. The regenerative finance movement in web3 offers hope to both the climate conscious and the crypto-curious. At the intersection of these two unlikely worlds lies an ecosystem of innovation and experimentation that is discovering answers to one of humanity’s most important quests.
Meet Our Panelists:
Bruxa - Founder of Thirsty Thirsty, one of our non profits we are celebrating this evening. Bruxa is a globally recognized wine professional and her organization works to re-center Ancestral Agricultural wisdom through food and wine storytelling to restore reverence for the natural world.
Jeremy McKane - Artist and Entrepreneur - CEO of OCN.AI a company that creates technology to monitor the health of the ocean and create trackable solutions for a regenerative economy.
Mel Loh - Co-Founder & CEO, Investera - an investment education community that helps people build the confidence and know-how to reach financial freedom.
Robbie Heeger - Founder & CEO, Endaoment - an organization that manages and encourage the charitable giving of digital assets.
Nikhil Raghuveera - Head of Strategy and Innovation + Celo Foundation - building financial systems that creates the conditions for prosperity—for everyone.
Stan Stalnaker - Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Hub Culture - a community working to enhance collective consciousness via relationships, experiences and Ven a global digital currency.
Key Event Takeaways:
Supporting Regenerative Finance / ReFi - a movement towards a more equitable distribution of crypto-wealth to projects working to make a positive impact on our planet
Collaboration + Community - continuing to connect people and resources to further climate tech and solutions through decentralized financial systems.
Re-centering and Prioritizing Indigenous and Ancestral Wisdom - an essential aspect to re-rooting ourselves and falling in love with the Earth again, to revere Earth's natural elements, manifestations, and creatures as sacred, and to return to peaceful co-existence and respect for all life.
Importance Of Protection Of The Commons - The commons are those things that we all own together, that are neither privately owned, nor managed by the government on our behalf. Our current political paradigm is sceptical of the commons: if nobody takes responsibility for something, it will inevitably be abused. So either it needs to be in private hands, run by public institutions or the people.
We’re Still Minting:Support Our Artists
These NFT pieces were created as part of our art auction to highlight and fundraise projects in the web3 space that are supportive to climate thinkers & activists. You can still bid on them on Juicebox.
Event Resources:
The Anthropocene - an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems
Superflux’s A more than human manifesto - bringing together fifteen creatives across various disciplines to propose ideas that can change the world over the next fifteen years.
Ecopsychology & the Anima Mundi - Ecopsychology draws us away from the mind-body split, and instead embraces an ancient concept popularized in Greek classical thought: the Anima Mundi, translated from Latin as the soul of the world.
Panelist Resources:
Some of the climate and crypto projects that most inspire me are Kolektivo, Spirals, GreenPill, and EthicHub. - Nikhil Raghuveera, Founder of Celo Foundation
Klima Dao https://www.klimadao.finance/ - fight climate change and earn rewards with KLIMA, a digital currency backed by real carbon assets.
ReFi Podcast https://refipodcast.podbean.com/ - How do we redesign money and heal the earth?
