Blockchain scaling platform Polygon is partnering with the Ocean Conservation Exploration and Education Foundation (OCEEF). The goal is to advance ocean literacy and give people exposure to deep-sea missions.
With this partnership, participants will be able to explore RV Odyssey, one of the most advanced ocean research vessels around the globe, through an immersive “change-making” experience in the metaverse. Furthermore, participants can help make key decisions surrounding the RV Odyssey and play a key role in deciding the vessel’s future expedition. They can also engage in the missions on board. OCEEF will also allow students to join the different missions and dives.
These opportunities will be made available through Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which would go toward funding the project.
Platforms like Polygon taking up green issues is not unheard of, but it does mark another small but significant shift away from the past. The crypto industry has been facing some serious criticism from environmentalists for several years now. And Proof-of-Work, the most commonly used mechanism of verifying crypto transactions, in particular, was at the receiving end of much of the flak. Recently, there have been a few changes, though.
Ethereum, the second largest crypto by market cap, in an event called the Merge, recently adopted a more eco-friendly mechanism called Proof of Stake. And Polygon is a layer-2 platform, which means that it runs on Ethereum’s blockchain and attempts to help it scale up. With its latest initiative, Polygon joins its host platform in the journey toward a more green world.
The new venture was announced on 6 October and comes a few months after Polygon’s core team declared, in April 2022, its commitment to becoming carbon-negative by the end of the year. Affirming its commitment, Polygon even pledged to donate $20 million to climate-related projects. Since then, Polygon has achieved carbon-neutral status, eliminating 104,794 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal described the latest undertaking as humbling but added that he is confident that Polygon’s technology is up to the task.
