Popcorn Network Chooses Patch to Execute Carbon-Neutral DeFi

[PRESS RELEASE – Berlin, Germany, 5th October 2021]

Popcorn Network has integrated with Patch, an API-first platform for carbon removal that enables businesses to neutralize their carbon emissions through high-quality, high-impact carbon removal projects.

A Smart Contract Emissions dashboard developed by Popcorn, and informed by Patch-powered Ethereum network emissions data, enables calculating the carbon impact of any smart contract execution. From here, Patch steps in by providing automated contributions to a broad set of carbon offset and removal projects. These include frontier negative emission technology and nature-based carbon sequestration projects.

Cryptocurrencies have come under fire in 2021 as many came to realize the high energy consumption of Proof of Work mining. Due to the strong presence of DeFi and NFT protocols in the still-PoW Ethereum, these sectors often suffered criticism for their choice of platform. More generally, very few crypto projects care about sharing their very significant revenue and yields with social impact organizations. Even if every DeFi and NFT protocol were to switch to a Proof of Stake blockchain, these will still have some degree of carbon impact and societal cost.

Popcorn Network was created to provide an alternative method of providing sustainable DeFi, diverting 50% of the fees levied into a DAO-curated list of high-impact organizations. In addition, achieving carbon neutrality has been the initial target for the project. Thanks to Patch and the open-source Smart Contract Emissions APIs, Popcorn can deliver on its promise.

DeFi and green initiatives are a natural union as users will be more incentivized to contribute to social causes by sharing a portion of a much higher yield. By using HYSI, Popcorn’s high yield index set to be released in Q4, the users will be contributing more to social causes than a traditional bank would grant them in interest — while still keeping the vast majority of the yield from their own assets.

“Popcorn ensures eco-friendly performance by offsetting its carbon footprint thanks to Patch, regardless of how many users and TVL we expect to accumulate. This is a new paradigm for banking, allowing us to scale impact while generating competitive returns for our users. We’re proud to be DeFi’s first yield optimizer to go green,” said Michael Kisselgof, Co-Founder, Popcorn.“DeFi has the potential to deliver significant social impact, while still generating returns for users,” said Brennan Spellacy, co-founder and CEO of Patch. “Popcorn is working to make this potential a reality by offsetting their emissions mapped to running on Ethereum and allocating a meaningful portion of yield to high-impact carbon removal and offset projects.”

About Popcorn Network

Popcorn is a new eco-friendly paradigm for DeFi, where users can earn high yield on their crypto assets while creating real world impact. Protocol fees are distributed not only to POP Token holders, but to impact initiatives selected by the community. Partnerships with carbon-negative projects ensure the overall positive impact of the protocol, allowing users to combine personal benefit while contributing to society at a negligible cost.

Smart contracts present the opportunity to bake social good into DeFi by contributing a substantial percentage of fees to create impact. This is why we created Popcorn. We believe in doing good with DeFi.

About Patch

Patch is an API-first carbon removal marketplace that enables companies to seamlessly purchase as little as a gram of carbon removal from individual projects. This micro-transaction access enables businesses of all sizes to work with carbon removal projects and neutralize emissions with the granularity required by embedded carbon removal use cases, such as carbon neutral shipping, travel, and climate positive financial services products. As an API-first platform, Patch aims to create a future where every commerce transaction—every swipe of a credit card, retail delivery, and bitcoin purchase—automatically compensate for its unavoidable emissions.