We are a team based in Munich at Technical University Munich and are looking for new team members.
Our plan to save the environment
Our solution is not to reinvent the wheel, but instead connect CO2 producers (for example coal plants, rocket companies, …) with CO2 consumers (for example tree plantations, artificial CO2 extraction, …).
CO2 consumers can earn money by getting free CO2 tokens (per ton of CO2) and sell these tokens on exchanges.
Companies and individuals that produce CO2 can buy CO2 tokens for each ton of CO2 they emit into the atmosphere.
In the last step, the CO2-producing companies or individuals then burn the token, and it becomes visible on the blockchain.
If CO2 emitting companies are always burning more CO2 tokens than they produce in reality, they receive a “10X Recovery” badge which they can use to attract customers.
Why are the current EU emission trading certificates faulty?
- The money goes to governments instead of the environment.
- Sometimes, companies receive and sell these certificates for free even if they don’t need them.
- Nowadays, Politicians want to set prices instead of the free market. But if you compare these prices with costs required for planting and maintaining trees, you will see that these prices are way too high.
- The certificates are limited and therefore economic performance is being prevented.
How our process works
- Forest owners apply on our website to get compensated for their carbon absorption.
- We check if the forest owner really owns the trees and if he complies with our guidelines.
- If yes, we will compensate them with CO2 tokens based on the Bitcoin Colored Coin concept.
- The forest owner can then sell the CO2 token on an exchange platform for an additional source of income.
- A trucking logistics company can decide to buy CO2 tokens and burn them for each ton of CO2 they emit into the atmosphere.
- Everyone can check how many CO2 tokens the logistics company removed on the blockchain.
What impact it has on our economy
- This model makes it more attractive to own a forest and to invest in reforestation.
- CO2 producers know that if they buy and burn CO2 tokens, it was taken out of the atmosphere before.
- Reforestation will happen where the land is the cheapest instead of urban cities because for the climate it makes no difference if one million trees will be planted in Siberia or Germany.
- No CO2-producing technology can be discriminated by Politicians in favor of another polluting technology.
- The most profitable CO2-producing companies will be able to stay in business because they have no problem buying and burning the right amount of CO2 tokens.
What are the benefits?
For individuals:
- There are many reforestation websites on the internet.
However, most of them are donation-based and have no transparent financial data. With 10XRecovery, every individual makes sure that for each token burned, one tonne of CO2 has been taken out of the atmosphere before. Furthermore, individuals can trace the toke from issuance, transactions to burning to make sure that no illegitimate party is enriching itself.
For companies:
- These days, customers care about the environmental impact that has driven the creation of the products and services.
Customers are willing to pay a premium for green labels and further it has a positive impact on the brand image.
For forestry:
- Nowadays, forestry is mainly driven by timber production.
With 10XRecovery, forest owners can invest in trees for the sole purpose of CO2 reduction and increase their profits.
For governments:
- 10XRecovery doesn’t want to and doesn’t have the right to enforce obligatory CO2 compensation upon the people.
Still, governments could enforce the trading and burning of these token to fulfill their political agenda like for example the Paris Agreement. An adaption of an already working solution would be easier for Politicians to accomplish and a cheaper solution for companies within the economy.
Why Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is the oldest and with currently 130 Exahashes per second also the most secure decentralized blockchain.
Our organization will issue the CO2 token centralized. But once issued, individuals can trade the tokens in a decentralized way so that free markets adjust the price per ton of CO2 instead of Politicians.
Lastly, developing a blockchain alone takes a big amount of work and security risks. But if we don’t use a blockchain, hackers could attack central servers and steal tokens, or we could cheat and create and sell tokens to unverified individuals. With blockchain technology, this isn’t easy, and everyone can monitor how we issue tokens to new owners.
Our Roadmap
In Phase 1 we have to program a wallet software that stores and transacts the CO2 tokens. At the same time, we have to create an honest estimation of how much money we need for funding and search for sponsors.
In Phase 2 we have to find early adopters (forest owners) who are willing to support our idea in exchange for the tokens. We then have to develop a procedure for how we verify the carbon dioxide bindings either by drone or by satellite technology.
In Phase 3 we have to program an exchange where forest owners can sell their CO2 tokens to establish a market.
In Phase 4 we have to find companies and individuals who buy and burn the tokens.
In Phase 5 we have to create customer awareness so that they buy products with a “10X Recovery” badge on them.
In Phase 6 we will include different technologies for carbon removal and add other greenhouse gas tokens to our services.
What kind of team members we want?
We need at least 4 types of people:
- Programmers who will develop a Colored Coin wallet and an exchange platform.
- Electrical Engineers who can develop a Drone or satellite strategy for calculating the tree population.
- Biologists / Botanists who can estimate the CO2 consumption of a forest based on the area, number of trees, kind of trees, the thickness of trees, and the height of trees. Further, we must verify and monitor the CO2 consumption of forest areas on the map.
- Public Outreach people who will build, maintain relationships and write articles for our homepage and press.
The properties of the “10XRecovery organization”
- Nobody owns the organization.
- All financial data will be transparent to anyone to develop trust with partners and consumers.
- Every employee will earn an equal amount of 2 times the minimum wage.
- All Software will be made open source.
What about XPrize?
The XPrize falls into two categories:
- The Prize Purse Distribution and 2. The Student Competition.
We are focusing on the second prize since we want to build an indirect key supportive technology.
The total amount of “Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Technologies” sums up to $2 million but max. $100,000 for one team.
In case we will win, we are going to use the money for organizational funding.
How can I join?
You can join if you …:
- are fluent either in English or German
- have any of the required skills
- participate in one team meeting per week
- are willing to dedicate at least 5 hours of work per week
- preferably live in Munich
For any criticism, feedback, or applications send an
Email to daniel.gockel@tum.de