The Wednesday Interview. Today’s interview is about a radical new approach to funding conservation. Let’s get straight to it. Christian and Sean spoke to me from their base in the south of Spain.
Anthony (A): Well today’s Wednesday interview is with two founders of Crypto Coral Tribe. And they say leveraging technology and art to drive marine conservation is their objective. Well, it fits in very well with Sustainable Futures Report, because as much as trying to deal with the climate crisis, we are also very concerned with preserving what we have here. So let me welcome first Christian and Sean, welcome!
S/C: Yes thank you very much!
Coral
A: Now, from your website, your objective is to plant 3,000 corals across 3 continents, which sounds like a great idea! But, the question is - how are you actually going to achieve this? How are you going to fund this? Perhaps you would like to explain.
Sean: Yes, of course, thank you for the opportunity, Anthony! Our initial pledge and one of the many things we plan to do is to plant 3,000 corals across the world. And we’re using NFTs as a sort of fundraising tool for that…
NFT
A: Ok, let’s back up a bit. What’s an NFT?
S: NFT is a non-fungible token, and the simplest way most people think of it is jpeg on the internet that is backed by and on the blockchain. The most important thing about that is that it’s inherently verifiable, you can verify ownership very easily through the blockchain. And that’s a simple way to put it, but there’s a whole world that opens up, so feel free to ask any questions from there.
Leveraging Art
A: So this links in with art, which you mentioned in your vision statement: “leveraging art” and I think we’ve come across NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, being sold for millions of pounds or dollars as very known artworks.
It’s a very odd concept to me because the artwork still exists, you don’t own it, but you do, but other people can share it. Where’s the value in that?
C: Yeah, I think it’s a real mind-boggling question, how pieces of art, for example, Beetle, mid-last year sold a piece for $79 million. The initial code, or script, of the Internet, was turned into an NFT in a video format and sold for a couple of million on Christie’s.
Digital Ownwership
So there is this kind of huge emphasis on the space right now. I think the main shift of understanding comes from getting more comfortable with digital ownership. For decades or hundreds of years, we have been very physical creatures like humans, but now we’re spending more time online, we’re valuing online communication, we buy stocks and bonds, a lot of our money is not physical money in the bank, but a digital currency verified and tied to our wallet, and so it’s the same concept that applies to the ownership of art. And in terms of utility, why would someone want to do it, if you own a digital piece of art and you want to quickly sell and move, in a matter of seconds do it online. You can safely store it online, and there’s no way that someone can create a fake version of it or copy it because it is encrypted on a blockchain. So there are many utility points that come along with it and concretize this idea of digital ownership.
A: Looking at your website, there are a number of pieces of art and those are, I believe, the NFTs you’re planning to sell. Now is that what underlines your Impact Fund?
Impact Fund
C: Yes, in sense. Our art collection has 9000 pieces, and they’re all individually unique pieces of art. So any ordinary person can come by and buy. So from the sale of these NFTs, or tokens represented by the art, 50% of those proceeds will go towards this Impact Fund. The Impact Fund’s mission and intention are to invest and donate towards marine conservation projects and other creative initiatives that approach things from another angle that is not purely on the field of work.
1 SOL
A: Now, you say that a crypto coral token will cost 1 SOL. Is SOL a cryptocurrency?
S: Yes, we are launching our collection on Solana. There is a big narrative around big cryptocurrencies that they are very energy inefficient and bad for the environment.
Blockchain
A: So Solana is a blockchain system?
S: Yes, indeed. So it’s very similar to Ethereum, in a sense that it’s a layer 1 which just means it’s a base blockchain that allows for things to be built on it, such as NFTs. And the key thing for us is that Solana is very cheap and very clean in terms of its energy efficiency, so actually uses less energy than 2 Google searches. For us, that was a very important decision. And yes, the price is 1 SOL.
A: At the moment, what does SOL cost in real money?
S: So right now it’s about $140. But we’re a little tied to FIAT currency, in a sense we’re working with NGOs who we will pay in Solana, but they have to pay their workers and the cost of materials all in USD. So essentially, even though our price will be around 1 SOL it is a subject of change with the cost of Solana.
A: Ok, so your price of 1 SOL does that buy you 1 NFT to one piece of artwork? Or are you auctioning the artwork?
S: 1 SOL for 1 NFT. No auction, it will just be a mint by a candy machine. So people can just go to the website, click the mint button, and they can get a lovely piece of artwork in their wallets.
A: Can I choose which one?
Rare Artwork
S: No it’s all completely randomly generated, so you can score really nice and high-level and rare piece of artwork that has special elements, really cool, and then go for a higher resale price if a person wants to sell it. And that’s why a lot of people enjoy, that lottery, they hope to get a better one. But they’re all nice pieces of art, and I’d be very happy with any of them! :)
A: And who’s creating these pieces of art?
C: We are working with an illustrator in Brazil, his name is Jao. And he specialises in indigenous and futurism art styles. So we’re working with him to hand draw elements and then map them on a computer. There are around 200 unique elements that go into creating this sort of database from which the 9000 is generated.
A: I see, I see. So part of your cost will be paying his fees to generate the artwork for you?
And then you got 50% that you will donate to these projects. Now, you mentioned specifically coral. How are you planning to take that investment forward?
Coral Farms
C: At the moment, we signed contracts with 4 different coral farms around the world. These are the people who specialise and dedicate to planting corals fragments through different techniques and we’ve got Turks & Caicos Reef based in Turks and Caicos, another couple in Indonesia, as well as one in Malaga, Spain. This is really cool opportunity for us to be so close to us and represent corals in Europe as well.
So we will be working with them and their teams to channel some of these funds to them and support their coral planting initiative to meet this 3,000 total.
A: You mention on your website you’re looking into supporting research into breeding coral in order to speed up and support the breeding of corals to compensate for the damage which is being caused by climate change.
Breeding Coral
S: Yes, thank you for noticing that. We want to go beyond just planting the corals because we want to be sustainable in the long run. And one of the issues with the coral farming industry is that it’s just a little bit too expensive for each coral fragment to plant, unlike the tree planting industry, which is commercially viable.
So with coral breeding research and economies of scale, people have really done some great work with, first of all, taking corals that have survived the 30-40 years of changing climate conditions, and using genetic breeding to take those strongest corals and selectively breed them, and also, at economies of scale, we can mass-produce them.
So we can produce a lot of healthy corals that can survive the next 20 years of increasing and changing climate conditions.
And if we can do that, we can reduce the price of planting one coral. Right now, it’s around $43, we can reduce it to as much as $10. And that’s huge.
And at the time when we can restore our coral reefs, I think the estimates say that within 25-30 years 75% of our coral’s reefs can disappear.
So it’s important that we not only consistently plant them, but that we plant strong corals that can survive these conditions.
A: OK, I also see on your website there are similar schemes, one supporting beluga whales, one white rhinos… Have you plans to move beyond coral?
Beyond Coral
C: Yes, this is something we thought about quite a lot. We wanted to start with corals, we thought they are an important factor in the oceans, as they support over 25% of marine life. But all of us are really passionate about nature, so we are excited to venture into other projects that leverage art and technology in clever and interesting ways, in order to capture the capital and make a positive impact on the world. So yeah, we’re open and that’s kind of our lens.
A: ok. Let’s go back to the system you’re basing all of this on - the blockchain. Blockchain underlies Bitcoin and all these other cryptocurrencies. And the whole business of cryptocurrency mining has a bad name because it is an intense use of energy. Now, what is the carbon footprint, what is the energy use of your use of blockchain?
Carbon Footprint of Blockchain
S: That’s a really good point, Anthony. It’s something I have mentioned before that there is this narrative that cryptocurrencies and NFTs, everything involving blockchain is really bad for the planet. And by using a chain like Solana, which is a more eco-friendly blockchain, we’ve really minimised that. Cause initially we were looking at Ethereum, which is a really high energy-intensive blockchain, and we couldn’t justify that for a mission that is all about saving the oceans, right? So Solana really was a perfect point for us, where it was a growing ecosystem, but also it has a really low carbon footprint with each transaction on Solana blockchain only using the energy of two Google searches. So That’s very reasonable for us, as a carbon footprint, especially the impact we can do by using this blockchain and NFTs.
A: I see. On your website, it says you’re launching in Q1 of 2022. Have you got a date yet?
C: We haven’t established a date yet, but we’re releasing one soon. It depends on a couple of factors - marketing, project development, so you have to stay tuned to our socials to learn about the date. :)
A: So you’re still on track for Q1?
C: Yes, we are on track.
A Year from Now?
A: Well that’s great! Where do you see yourself a year from now?
C: Interesting question, maybe we can both give an answer to this.
Part of the project and one dimension we have in mind is the creative side of investments and Impact Fund. We want to support this kind of on-field work, restoring corals, whatever other conservation that may come up that we can support with our Fund. But we also believe in the creative aspect of things, the power of art to communicate the issues, the power of art to bring out emotions, to drive people towards taking action. So we’re talking to several artists at the moment about potential future collections, around generative forms of art, which are really different than usual art. It’s very data-driven, visualising sounds of the ocean or different data points we can touch. Really spark people’s imagination, get them curious, bring this kind of art narrative to conservation efforts. So that’s something I look forward to as well in the next year, I definitely see it in our year plan, expanding the creative capacity of what we do.
A: And Sean, what is your vision?
S: I definitely share this artistic passion with Christian. But for me, something that’s really special about this project is - NFTs as a tool for collaboration. The technology in the NFTs means that anyone who has it, can verify their ownership, and therefore, we can collaborate with all of those people. The way we see our Impact Fund eventually moving is that anyone who owns our NFT can participate in the proposal and voting process for how funds are allocated to different charitable initiatives. And that will take time, to foster and cultivate that sense of community, that sense of ownership and responsibility for our planet. And the desire to go in, take time to read through proposals, and vote how funds should be allocated. All while trying to make it fun and build up a sense of community, really gamify the whole experience and just have a whole network of brilliant marine and NGO partners and community leaders who are all pushing forward ideas and proposals of different projects that we can all work towards and hopefully it will be something quite beautiful in a year’s time when it will be much more than just corals. The project will be about a whole ecosystem of marine and wildlife restoration.
A: Well that’s great. Sean, Christian, thank you both very much for talking to The Sustainable Futures Report.
C: Thank you very much for having us.
S: Thank you for having us, it was a pressure… pleasure, you’re a real gentleman!
A: Hahaha, no one has called me that before!
At the Sustainable Futures Report I’m always trying to bring you something new and interesting!
As you heard, the system launches in the next few weeks, so if you want to invest you’ll have to wait. If you’re considering an investment you should, of course, always take appropriate professional advice.
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More Interviews
I have a lot of eager interviewees. The next one should be ready for you this time next week, and thereafter there will be a Wednesday Interview every Wednesday and a Friday Magazine on Fridays.
That’s it for this time.
That was the Wednesday Interview from the Sustainable Futures Report.
I’m Anthony Day.
Bye for now.
Find Crypto Coral Tribe at: https://www.cryptocoraltribe.io
