Environmental commodities evolve with new blockchain-based infrastructure

In recent years, taking care of the environment has been elevated to a global priority, as evidenced by carbon dioxide emissions hitting a new record high in 2021 at 414.72 parts per million according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate.gov website. Recognizing the impact these emissions are having on climate change, many countries have announced their efforts to achieve net-zero emissions.

The United States shared its plan for environmental commodity measurement via the Bureau of Economic Analysis, while Denmark leads the charge with a plan to hit net-zero emissions before 2050. By reaching net zero, a state where greenhouse gasses entering and exiting the atmosphere are equal, global climate change will no longer be a threat to human survival.

Consequently the President and Founder of 1GCX, Michael Wilson shares, “environmental commodities, a class of assets that exist as non-tangible energy credits, are now recognized as the most crucial value creators in the next 10 – 50 years”. With the introduction of these commodities, the global community will have little choice but to pursue cleaner energy consumption, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, despite the world aligning with “going green,” few understand what this path looks like moving forward. Although some recognize that a decentralized model involving cryptocurrency and digital assets makes sense as part of a sustainable solution, others still believe these assets are not green and any related use cases are simply speculative.

1GCX, a platform founded in 2021 as The Global Carbon Exchange, is addressing these concerns head-on. The exchange represents a green technology that can bring the benefits of new markets to market valuations in cryptocurrency by highlighting the most promising projects in this space. The resulting two-way bridge for carbon offset trading becomes part of a broad, holistic market that can facilitate adoption, education and connection across the crypto industry.

A commodity-first approach

Unlike others in the space, 1GCX incorporated a market-making, commodities-first approach to redesign its financial markets. Moreover, the incorporation of the pairing and cross-application of crypto, commodities and carbon credits differentiate this platform from other exchanges. For users, this means a new user experience for trading on the platform, with access to live markets in carbon and energy. Therefore, 1GCX as a centralized financial exchange will become the focal point to draw interest and direct the flow of capital to the most promising projects while also supporting the adoption of newer participants who are starting their Web3 journey.

Looking at the rest of the ecosystem, users will come face-to-face with transformative offerings centered around tokenized bonds, called black bonds, and new payment systems that integrate crypto with crypto-commodity pairings.

The 1GCX team believes it can counter market hype through joint efforts, doing what it believes is necessary for long-term success.

The first digitized carbon assets

Since May 11, 2022, 1GCX has continued to offer trading pairs with Bitcoin (BTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT), in addition to other well-known digital assets and physical commodities. With a strong foundation, the platform’s exchange has resolved to add new cryptocurrency assets every week. It also shares roadmap plans for creating the first digitized carbon assets from a variety of offset verifiers around the world. These assets are said to be available for trade as early as Q4 2022.

Taken together, the family-run 1GCX invites interested participants to run crypto transactions through its network as the first step to helping the world reach net zero.

R.A Wilson, the Chief Technical Officer of 1GCX, reiterates the company’s mission, stating:

“1GCX is well positioned to help achieve a future of net zero emissions because we believe in a system of incentives and opportunity. Net zero is about accounting for emissions and sequestration to achieve a balance in our industrialized systems. Our economic principles of open and transparent markets begin with increasing the flow of capital and accounting for unavoidable emissions through the use of free market solutions such as carbon offsets in a way that benefits everyone.”