NFTs are becoming bigger each day, but not without using a vast amount of energy to be created. Co2ign is a new platform that allows artists and buyers to digitally sign the NFT to cut out the carbon emissions used during the traditional Blockchain process. Carly Rector, CEO and chief architect of Co2ign Art, joined Cheddar News to discuss how the technology behind the company is a climate-friendly marketplace for digital art. 

NFTs are becoming bigger each day, but not without using a vast amount of energy to be created. Co2ign is a new platform that allows artists and buyers to digitally sign the NFT to cut out the carbon emissions used during the traditional Blockchain process. Carly Rector, CEO and chief architect of Co2ign Art, joined Cheddar News to discuss how the technology behind the company is a climate-friendly marketplace for digital art. “Blockchain also uses digital signatures, but it also distributes sort of the transaction ledger across many servers that are storing the Blockchain,” she said.

Co2ign Art’s Evironmentally Friendly Take on NFTs

non fungible tokens you know them N. F. T. S. They become very popular, a very popular phenomenon across industries with a wide range of people from visual artists to sports stars cashing in from buying and selling them a downside is that they do require vast amounts of energy to create accelerating climate change in the process. So my next guest is on a mission to shake up the model by launching a platform where artists can sell electronic files of their work containing a digital signature that verifies who created it and who bought it. Well half of the sale also goes to purchasing carbon credits to offset emissions. And joining me now is Carly, Rector Ceo and chief architect at Co sign art Carly thanks so much for coming on the show. Happy to have you tell me more about your platform and how you came up with the idea. Sure. Yeah. So I have a lot of friends who are digital artists and I saw when N. F. T. S. Are getting really big that they really were actually pretty negative on them due to the environmental impact and sort of their questionable value of them. So I really wanted to build an alternative for them that allowed them to sort of solve the same problem for them and that they could sell their work. Um but be able to help the environment at the same time instead of heard it. Um And I do want to note the theory and did their murders last week there consuming a lot less energy emissions than they used to. But it actually does more than offset. It goes way far in the other direction, about 60 times the emissions of the theory of even before um the merge happened is how much we offset. So we're talking like 100 kg versus like 6000 kg of credits on the other side. Very cool. Um Do you think it's important to the artist community? I'm sure for artists they want to do good. Right. And making sure that it is a climate friendly solution probably is important. Mhm. Yeah, I feel like a lot of artists. Yeah. A lot of artists really care a lot about the environment and really don't want to hurt it and actually would love a way to help it. I think if they had a way to do so. Um that's very important. So how does the digital signature? Carly technically work. And how is it different from what you see on the Blockchain? Sure. So digital signatures are pretty common on the internet, right? You can see signed web pages are signed code that you download. It says this was built by google LLC or whatever it identifies sort of the person who signed that data. Um Blockchain also use digital signatures, but it also distributes sort of the transaction ledger across many servers that are storing the Blockchain. Um coastline art is a lot simpler than that. The signature is included in the metadata of the file itself which the buyer can then download. So the it's not stored on the ledger? It's just a file that the user can download? And it says like this is a validated purchase that was made on Kassian. Yes. Some of the artwork that we're showing is is really absolutely beautiful here. Carly. So how do artists interact with this? How do they sell their work via your offering? Sure. So we have an invite only right now, you can go to the site um and request an invite and we invite artists every day. Um Once they sign up, it's pretty easy to get started selling. You could just link your stripe account in your bank account and then uploading art is very fast and simple. It's just like you upload it, give it a title, give it a price and your life. And and what's the stake? Carly that artists get to take home? Right, I'm sure they want to do good. They want their artwork to be out there. They also need to make money. Um And so what's the percentage that they take versus what actually goes back into the climate? Sure. So 50% like you mentioned goes to carbon credits, 30% goes to the artists and then 20% of the transaction fee. Uh we'd like to know that's actually much better than artists get from a lot of sort of print on demand platforms which tend to be in the 10-20% margin range because you have a lot of production costs to build and sort of ship a print or anything physical like that. How do buyers interact with this if you want to buy our via your platform, you also are behind the climate friendly push Carly. What would you tell those prospective buyers? Sure, it's very easy to buy on on our site. It's basically just add it to your cart. You check it out, you can pay via normal methods like credit card, Apple pay, google pay when you strike. Um, and then you receive your image in the email shortly afterwards and you can see sort of the details of the carbon credits that you funded in particular is crypto accepted as a form of payment on the platform. Crypto is not Crypto is not accepted. No. Okay, so what's behind that decision? Um, we think, well technically it's a lot more complicated to accept crypto, but we also just don't think our users are going to be that interested in that and it's much more straightforward to just pay via normal payment methods and so let me know the Cryptocurrency, not necessarily the best option for the climate either. Carly. So good to have you on. I love the artwork, especially what's behind you in your background as well. That's Carly, Rector Ceo and chief Architect at Co sign art. Carly. Thank you