Crypto project selling NFTs wants to plant 1 million trees with 10% of sales proceeds

Smart contract-focused crypto project TrustSwap today announced a partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects to capitalize on the non-fungible token (NFT) boom and plant 1 million trees in return, as per a release shared with CryptoSlate.

NFTs are blockchain-based representations of tangible or intangible objects that tie ownership of an underlying asset with their holders. Anything can be represented as an NFT, with popular use cases ranging from crypto-collectibles and art to in-game assets and physical real estate.

The NFT angle

As per the release, TrustSwap will utilize its FlashLaunch feature to help raise additional funds for the Eden Reforestation Project. 

The latter is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to reforestation and aims to plant over 1 million trees in 2021 to offset the heavy environmental costs created by PoW blockchains. Nearly 20,000 acres of forest have been earmarked for the cause.

“FlashLaunch” is similar to TrustSwap’s LaunchPad token offerings, but geared towards raises under $750,000 to enable smaller projects to participate in the crypto marketplace.

For each FlashLaunch organized, TrustSwap will mint and sell five “Golden Ticket” NFTs with 10% of the proceeds being donated to the Eden project.

Bids for these “Golden Ticket” NFTs will begin at 0.2 ETH (≈$500)and unlock access to a guaranteed $500 priority allocation for that launch. The “Golden Ticket” NFTs can also be traded and resold on any marketplace for 24 hours prior to the launch.

The who, what, why, where?

The move comes admist concerns of wide-spread ecological damage from the popularity and growth of the NFT market.

For the uninitiated, NFTs directly do not damage the planet. However, they are popularly issued on proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which rely on massive computing infrastructure to validate transactions and maintain the network.

Critics say the production of NFTs is, basically, contributing to environmental damage by continuing to support PoW networks via the use of overlaying products and applications. Some have even started to claim that NFTs could eventually lead to a global climate crisis—an argument with little evidence and one that’s dismissed by prominent crypto developers.

Ok so I am across the “NFTs are bad because I don’t understand art”, which is just an extension of the age old argument of literally anything new is bad because I don’t understand it. But NFT = global climate crisis? Where is this argument coming from? I must have missed it.

— kain.eth (@kaiynne) March 15, 2021

Meanwhile, newer projects are trying to repair the so-termed damage. As CryptoSlate reported last week, some are donating to environmental charities directly, while some are using Ethereum-based art to raise funds and invest in forest ecosystems.

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