Estonian startup Single.Earth, backed by EQT Ventures, chose Solana blockchain to provide security and transparency for its platform after a thorough evaluation of different blockchain technologies’ capabilities and energy use.
“People often speak of the massive energy use of blockchain, but this talk is based on old, so-called proof of work technologies like Bitcoin. New blockchain technologies and especially Solana are making a change here,” said Andrus Aaslaid, chief technology officer and co-founder of Single.Earth.
With Solana, the power use per transaction is 10 million times smaller than for Bitcoin and 16 times smaller than its closest rival. It can be even compared to your usual Google search,” Aaslaid said.
Single.Earth models the capacity of nature in terms of carbon and biodiversity. Using satellite imagery, big data analysis, and machine learning, it has built a digital twin of planet Earth, describing how nature works. Single.Earth emits tokens to landowners for carbon dioxide captured in biodiverse nature.
“Blockchain technology is the perfect solution for the challenges of transparency and trust which are hanging over voluntary carbon markets,” Aaslaid said.
In summer 2021, the 2019-founded Single.Earth received one of the largest seed rounds in Estonia to date: $7.9 million led by EQT Ventures and participated by Icebreaker.vc and Pipedrive founders Ragnar Sass and Martin Henk. Since then, the team has grown from eight to some 60 people, including a climate science team of 15 from UC Berkeley, Harvard, University of California, Imperial College London, and others.