Klima DAO
Olympus DAO
Klima forked the controversial Polygon-powered Olympus DAO to kickstart the project, which "might be the future of money (or it might be a ponzi)"[1][2]
Both projects share a penchant for anonymity among their founding leadership, and for naming themselves after the idols of Greek mythology - "Zeus" (of Olympus DAO) and "Dionysus" (of Klima DAO), respectively.
$KLIMA
Price
The price of Klima has collapsed by 99.94% from a high of $3,681 at the end of October 2021 to $2.39 as of February 2023.[3]
Tokenomics
Prior to the collapse of its token price and failure of this model, Klima DAO's official documentation described its tokenomics in terms of Olympus DAO's (3,3) staking yields meme. Offering a game theoretical "Nash table" based on this meme, Klima DAO claimed that "the best strategies are all cooperative." They declared that those who stake their tokens will "benefit the most," while "sellers are the most evil actors" and "get the least rewards". The docs conclude that this made Klima "unlike other protocols where you never want to be the last person holding."[4]
In reality, billionaire Oligarch and Klima DAO backer Mark Cuban made millions of dollars exploiting a loophole in $KLIMA's smart contracts, selling massive amounts of tokens obtained cheaply in Klima's presale at the expense of thousands of investors who acted on Klima DAO's advertised tokenomic theory of "cooperation."[5]
Quality
Klima DAO's official documentation claims that because their tokens are based on carbon credits certified by Verra and Gold Standard, their offsets meet the "highest standards for quality carbon offsetting in the world." Klima DAO concludes that "going with these standards will make sure your offsets are trustworthy and effective," purporting that these standards "guarantee that every ton of CO2 is Additional... Contained... Permanent... Sustainable... Verified... and Unique."[6]
$BCT
No other protocol has brought anywhere near as many Verra credits on-chain — meaning onto its crypto blockchain — as Toucan Protocol.
With the launch of Toucan’s Base Carbon Ton ($BCT) in Fall 2021, over 20 million carbon credits were turned into crypto tokens in a pool derived entirely from the Verra registry, making up 25% of Verra’s total demand for the year.[7]
The demand for $BCT was driven largely by another crypto token that was launched by KlimaDAO in coordination with Toucan, called $KLIMA. The idea behind $KLIMA was to create a digital, carbon-backed currency by buying all the cheapest Verra credits off the market in what they called “sweeping the floor.”
In April 2022, coordinated reporting from CarbonPlan and Bloomberg described how many of the projects were so low quality even corporate polluters refused to buy them, and they had no market until Toucan and Klima regenerated demand.[8][9]
The $BCT pool included old Verra credits sold by a fossil gas producer, which issued offsets based on the fallacy of ‘avoiding emissions’ by burning fossil gas instead of coal, despite the former’s greater methane pollution.[10]
Another project manager which received millions in funding via the launch of the $BCT pool was the company behind a Hydropower Dam in India which flooded in 2013, killing thousands of people and displacing thousands more.[11]
In a theory heavily promoted by Toucan and Klima, locking these tokens up in Klima’s treasury would raise the price of carbon credits until corporations were forced to pay more to offset or actually make meaningful emissions reductions.[12]
Sources
- ↑ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/12/05/olympus-dao-might-be-the-future-of-money-or-it-might-be-a-ponzi/
- ↑ https://protos.com/cuban-klimadao-mark-revenge-klima-polygon-bct-toucan-protocol/
- ↑ https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/klima-dao
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220126145422/https://docs.klimadao.finance/tokenomics-and-mechanisms/game-theory-olympus-inspired
- ↑ https://protos.com/cuban-klimadao-mark-revenge-klima-polygon-bct-toucan-protocol/
- ↑ https://docs.klimadao.finance/blogs/about-carbon-offsets
- ↑ https://carbonherald.com/toucan-protocol-end-useless-carbon-offsets-struggling/
- ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-07/the-biggest-crypto-effort-to-end-useless-carbon-offsets-is-backfiring
- ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-07/the-biggest-crypto-effort-to-end-useless-carbon-offsets-is-backfiring
- ↑ https://offset.climateneutralnow.org/natural-gas-based-grid-connected-power-project-at-peddapuram-ap-by-gautami-power-limited-4828-
- ↑ https://theecologist.org/2022/mar/11/fear-over-indias-dangerous-dams
- ↑ https://branchoutnow.org/the-carbon-market-shell-game/