Dear Celo community,
Through this post, we would like to introduce the Arkreen project and share about RECs, an on-chain carbon offset live on Celo.
- Introduction - Who is Arkreen?
Arkreen Network is a Web3-enabled data network for distributed renewable energy resources connection and monetization towards a carbon-neutral Earth.
Arkreen’s mission aims to establish DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) for ReFi (Regenerative Finance) infrastructure and a global inclusive network for climate action. It’s built upon a massive number of individual participants, establishes a green asset issuance and absorption network grounded in renewable energy data, facilitating the consolidation of individual efforts into a substantial contribution toward carbon neutrality.
Arkreen team embarks on a mission to redefine the landscape, bringing innovative solutions to build digital infra of ReFi with community co-built DePIN way. As the founder of Arkreen with rich cross-industry experiences in IoT and digital security, Leo Lin is an important and active DePIN and ReFi integrated innovation leader and evangelist to drive the global ecosystem.
- What are RECs and what problem are we trying to solve?
REC stands for Renewable Energy Certificate. Similar to carbon credit, REC is also a financial instrument to encourage renewable energy generation and usage to mitigate global climate change.
The current REC market is characterized by low transparency, limited liquidity, and a high entry barrier. Addressing these issues is crucial for fostering a more efficient and accessible REC market, encouraging broader participation, and ultimately advancing the transition to renewable energy sources.
Arkreen AREC protocol tries to solve this problem with the capability to bridge classic REC, such as I-REC(I-REC for Electricity • I-TRACK), in the physical world into the tokenized AREC in the Web3 system. Bridged AREC is backed one-to-one by classic REC. With bridged AREC, REC assets expand its market into Web3 ecosystem, and can improve its efficiency, transparency, liquidity and lower the entry barrier in meeting various carbon neutrality needs.
- What is our asset - ARECs?
There are two kinds of AREC assets: AREC NFT and ART token. AREC NFT is the AREC asset compatible with ERC721, which can be transferred or redeemed as a whole. ART token is the AREC asset compatible with ERC20, which is minted by liquidizing AREC NFT. ART token can be offset to neutralize carbon emission caused by brown energy consumption. Redeeming AREC NFT or offsetting ART token will be recorded as a climate action. Based on one or more climate actions, climate badges can be freely minted to be used as proof of carbon footprint neutrality.
Bridged AREC has the same quality as the original one. To issue AREC within the AREC bridge, you need to redeem the amount of RECs you want to issue according to the original REC rules and process, and you need to claim your redemption purpose is to issue AREC on the blockchain. The ID of the AREC NFT to be issued and the transaction hash value minting this AREC NFT should also be indicated in the original REC redemption file, which must be submitted to Arkreen for verification.
Upon receiving the REC redemption file, Arkreen will verify all the information included in this REC redemption file. While the verification is successful, this file will be uploaded to Filecoin, and the CID of the redemption file will be fed back. With the CID and all the REC information recorded in the redemption file, you need to update all the required information into the AREC NFT. Arkeen will check all the AREC NFT information against the information in the REC redemption file. Only if they are identical, will this AREC NFT issuance be certified by Arkreen.
In this bridged AREC issuance approach, redeemed REC in the physical world and newly bridged AREC are two-way bound. That means, bridged ARECs are exclusively linked to the specific redeemed RECs, and redeemed RECs are also exclusively linked to the specific bridged AREC.
- Arkreen and Celo - what have we launched on Celo?
Carbon credits and RECs are two main types of carbon assets. Both are important sustainability tools that can help individuals and organizations reduce carbon emissions. Celo has already introduced carbon credits to create a beneficial climate impact via CGP30/CGP52/CGP77/CGP80 4,5,6.
With REC onboarding on Celo, it will provide more alternative approaches and better flexibility for the Celo community. Many ReFi and ESG-related projects within the Celo ecosystem will have the opportunity to utilize tokenized REC to meet their diverse decarbonization and investment requirements. and it will further strengthen Celo’s position at the forefront of the ESG and sustainability movement.
Arkreen already supports the world’s first REC bridge application on Celo mainnet, capable of bridging numerous REC assets from the physical world into the crypto Web3 world. For more details, please check here(Tokenized REC on Celo via Arkreen AREC Bridging Protocol | by Arkreen | Medium). With this bridge protocol, 100 I-REC has been bridged into Celo ecosystem as an AREC NFT. This AREC NFT has been liquidized to mint the cART token on Celo.
In 2024, we plan to bridge more classic RECs from the physical world and provide more AREC liquidity for the Celo ecosystem. We hope AREC will be used to offset carbon emission of Celo blockchain nodes, and most projects running on Celo blockchain with the need to offset carbon footprint.
- How can one buy ARECs?
Arkreen has set up a liquidity pool of cART/cUSD within Uniswap on the Celo blockchain. Any user can buy cART with cUSD or any other token Uniswap Dapp supports. With the help of AREC Dapp, users can offset their purchased cART to neutralize their carbon footprint.
cART token: 0x9BBF9f544F3ceD640090f43FF6B820894f66Aaef
Liquidity Pool: 0x7023f23B449ff69c2BEE7B4065Ab60afE0899F72
You could exchange cART with cUSD via this link:
https://app.uniswap.org/swap?chain=celo&inputCurrency=0x765DE816845861e75A25fCA122bb6898B8B1282a&outputCurrency=0x9BBF9f544F3ceD640090f43FF6B820894f66Aaef
AREC Dapp has integrated Uniswap DEX UI, so you can also exchange cART with the AREC link: AREC Dapp
- Conclusion
Mitigating climate warming is not solely the responsibility of government agencies and corporate giants; it is a shared mission for every individual, family, and entity. Without the active participation of each person, the movement to reduce carbon emissions and combat global warming cannot succeed. With the inclusion of bridged AREC on Celo blockchain, it will be feasible to include individuals to achieve carbon neutrality. Now, taking action to mitigate climate change is an inescapable responsibility of everyone. Become climate actors together with Arkreen and Celo!