ICO Review: 4NEW Promises Environmentally Sustainable Cryptocurrency

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4NEW Promises Environmentally Sustainable Cryptocurrency

The Problem: Cryptocurrency Energy Consumption

There is intense excitement among many over the possibility that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies will radically transform society. At the same time, there are many who are equally passionate about the problems with the current models. One set of issues relates to energy management and environmental sustainability, in particular the voracious energy consumption of blockchain technology. The 4NEW blockchain platform aims at addressing this problem using KWATT tokens to enable tokenized electricity transaction over a blockchain network.

As of September 30, 2017, one bitcoin transaction consumed as much power as eight US households per day. As of December 31, 2017, one bitcoin transaction consumed as much power as eleven US households per day. As of March 31, 2018, one bitcoin transaction consumed as much power as thirty-one US households per day. Also, as of March 31 2018, Bitcoin mining energy consumption officially surpassed the entire energy consumption of the country of Singapore, which ranks 43rd globally in regards to energy consumption. As the difficulty of mining increases, this energy consumption will increase exponentially. At the current rate of consumption, by 2019 Bitcoin mining will consume the same amount of energy as the 20th country in the world in energy consumption.

Critics have rightly pointed out this is simply unsustainable. The world relies primarily on the production of energy from the burning of coal and oil, so the current model will damage the environment. It also threatens to destabalise the economy. If Bitcoin continues to grow in uptake under the current model, it will begin to have a significant impact on the world’s coal and oil supplies. The more valuable bitcoin becomes, the more energy will be used to mine the coins and the cost of a kilowatt will rise globally. This will go on until energy around the world will cost much more than it does currently. The volatility of the value of cryptocurrencies will be an issue as well since with price spikes, come energy spikes.

The Solution: 4NEW’s Blockchain

4NEW’s “eco-friendly” blockchain will be powered by powerplants that convert waste into energy. 4NEW uses what it describes as a “waste to energy model” in which the company is paid for the waste its powerplant processes and the sale of byproducts such as fertilizer, organic materials and clean water. The process of refining various waste products into water and organic materials creates energy and that can be leveraged to either be sold to national grids or applied to operate mining processes at an onsite mining farm. The mining farms will power the 4NEW decentralized ledger, which is where all actors in any industry will be able to transact using the KWATT coin. The idea might sound radical or audacious but this is one direction society could move as uptake of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology continues.

Token

KWATT Token currently is an ERC20, Ethereum based smart contract. Upon completion of the blockchain development, the token will be swapped to the KWATT Coin that will interact with the blockchain. The coins are smart contracts which establish a binding relationship between transacting parties and provide a value for each transaction. The ledger will provide an immutable and auditable journal of all transactions related to purchase and sale of goods and services on the blockchain. With all parties to each transaction being able to see the same ledger entry, costs of reconciliation.

Website: https://4new.io/

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