#17: ReFi for Disasters

This week's Earth State focus on ReFi is about Resilience Finance to prepare for, respond to, and recovery from the natural and man-made disasters that are a growing threat to human and ecological security.

3 years ago   •   14 min read

By IXO World

šŸ”„ We all live in an increasingly perilous world and this week we explore ReFi in the context of disaster readiness, response, and recovery financing šŸŒ±.

Our guest curator this week is Adam Bornstein, who leads the Danish Red Cross Finance and Systems Change Team.

Resilience Finance

Earth needs greater resilience to both humanitarian disasters ā€“whether from wars, famines, economic collapse, or pandemics; as well as environmental disasters ā€“ whether natural, such as volcanos; man-made, such as forest fires; or climate-related consequences of human activity, such as violent storms and species extinction.

The scale of disasters threating human and ecological security is becoming vividly evident to us all locally and globally, with the Covid pandemic, Russian nuclear threat, refugee crises in Ukraine and elsewhere, currency crisis in Argentina, mega-fires in Australia and California, the list goes on...

Each intervention, disaster, conflict, response and recovery is different from the last not because the actors change, but rather because the system changes ā€“ the variables; the velocity; the duration; the climate; the cost ā€“ social, economic and cultural. ā€“ Adam Bornstein

At the same time, the scale of capital and distribution mechanisms that are required to adequately prepare and adapt for disasters, to rapidly mobilise effective assistance when and where this is needed, and to support recovery ā€“ rebuilding and regeneration, are inadequate and the gaps are widening.

Chaos and complexity in disaster zones

The 2022 authoritative IPCC Report projects that risks will compound one another as multiple hazards occur at the same time and in the same regions. For example, in tropical regions, the combined effects of heat and drought may trigger sudden and significant losses in agricultural yields. At the same time, heat-related mortality will increase while labor productivity decreases, so people will not be able to work harder to overcome drought-related losses. Together, these impacts will lower household income whilst raising food prices ā€” a devastating combination that jeopardizes food security and exacerbates health risks, such as malnutrition.

Disasters happen within complex systems that often plunge into chaos when human coordination fails, which is unfortunately most times. Web3 systems are inherently anti-fragile, and provide mechanisms for much more effective human coordination before, during, and after disasters strike.

Catastrophe Bonds on the Blockchain

As the world's largest humanitarian organisation, the Red Cross has been innovating the use of Web3 technologies and decentralised financing mechanisms, having very successfully launched the world's first Volcano Catastrophe Bond on a blockchain (Cat Bond ā€“no relation to Kitties) that is now trading on the traditional financial market, and is scaling tokenised cash transfers to vulnerable communities using Community Inclusion Currencies. Ā Read more in Adam's lead article for Earth State.

Rivers of ReFi Change
Adam Bornstein gives his first-hand account of how the Danish Red Cross is innovating ReFi for financing humanitarian disaster Response and Recovery, with Cat Bonds and Community Currencies.

Decentralised Impact Organisations

The climate crisis is a governance and coordination crisis. Could Decentralised Impact Organisations (DIOs) built on DAOs and ReFi for climate verification, staked commitments & collective action, be a solution?

Decentralised Impact Organisations
The climate crisis is a governance and coordination crisis. Could Decentralised Impact Organisations (DIOs) built on DAOs and ReFi for climate verification, staked commitments & collective action, be a solution?

Earth State Markets

It's been a bullish week for crypto finally, as most of the negative news is out of the way for now. We know what interest rate hikes to expect, and itā€™s possible that with such heavy inflation, the SEC may not go ahead with all the proposed aggressive interest rate hikes, if it hurts the US economy too much. TA traders are looking for bitcoin to break $46k to confirm weā€™ve moved into bullish momentum. Adding to the short-term bullish trend is Terra's plan to purchase $10 billion worth of BTC. Weā€™ve already seen purchases amounting to around $400 mill from them, and their Gnosis safe has a stablecoin balance of approximately $1.4 billion! The market is trying to front run Terra, it seems.

šŸ“ˆReference Markets over the past week

BTC

The OG of cryptos

+6.7%

$43700

Monitor Terra Luna BTC purchases here, as they climb their way to $10 billion! 

ETH

The king of Alts

+10%

$3110

Tim Beiko Kiln testnet successfully switched off PoW. Time puts Vitalik Buterin on the cover.

ATOM

Interoperable Blockchain Chain

+2.7%

$29

You can bridge ATOM to Polkadot using Axelcore!

OSMO

Yield Farming on cosmos

-7.5%

$8.57

A carbon market will now be available on Osmosis, thanks to Regen!

CRO

Crypto.com 

+11.6%

$0.44

Full speed ahead. Crypto.com announced this week that they will be an official sponsor of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Band Protocol
High Performance Cosmos Oracle

+16.1%

$4.10

Band Protocol plans the BCIP-7: to increase data integrity via the number of external calls to data sources.


JUNO

Smart-contracts on IBC

-26.7%

$28.75

The gamed airdrop saga is hurting the juggernauts temporarily, as uncertainty is in the air and the Whale has started dumping his Juno holdings that werenā€™t previously found as the network starts to confiscate the funds. 

XPRT

Liquid Staking, synthetics and NFTā€™s

-8.1%

$3.32

A great read on why liquid staking is so important to POS chains.

LUNA

Terra ecosystem

+6.2%

$92.37

Big news this week as Anchor protocol is changing its famous 20% APR to a dynamic rate to be more sustainable. The interest rate can now increase or decrease by up to 1.5% a month.

šŸ“ŠImpact Markets over the past week

REGEN

Ecological State Ledger

+5.4%

$0.89

The Nature Carbon Ton (NCT) has just been integrated into Regen Ledger, bringing IBC-compatible carbon to the Interchain economy.

IXO

Internet of Impact

+1%

$0.41

Ixo is set to go carbon negative as it offsets the impact hubs emissions.

EWT

Energy Web Token

+20.8%

$6.18

Stedin & Energy Web have been working on a Decentralised Asset Management System: a future proof solution for managing energy assets. 

BCT

Toucan Protocol: Base Carbon Tonnes

-0.6%

$3.11

ā€œWe need to educate people about the importance of carbon credits. This is fundamental knowledge that should be taught in school - how to protect our planetā€ Listen to the recording of Toucans twitter space.

CELO

Seigniorage stablecoins collateralised by crypto and natural assets.

+6.3%

$3.12


Check out Celos zero-waste immersive art experience here!

DOVU

Connecting crypto users with inspiring farm projects across the planet. Moving carbon from the sky into the soil.

+11.4%

$0.03

Staking Phase 2 is coming!


On Monday, DOVU will be opening staking to an additional 100 people.



šŸ“‰DAO Shares over the past week

ā„¹ļø Remember that DAOā€™s with a rebase mechanism should be valued on their treasuries, and market cap increases are a more important metric than token prices, as high yields try to outpace price fluctuations.

KLIMA DAO

Carbon Credits as its treasury

+21.7%

$20.06

Treasury:

14,626,252 TONNES CO2

Leave a love letter for the future. A movement from Klima, which allows you to write a letter that will live on the blockchain forever, as proof-of-love for the world we share. Write yours here.

Olympus DAO

The largest DAO built on Ethereum

+42%

$39.49

Treasury:

$435 million

Learn how OHM is driving widespread acceptance as a highly-liquid asset.

Gitcoin DAO

GTC - Platform to find meaningful open-source work

+31%

$7.41


Their Grants Round 13 is now over. They reached several new milestones, including over 1k grants funded, 300k contributions and over 16,000 people who participated. What will happen next? Visit their Twitter Thread to find out.

BitDAO

The world's largest DAO directed treasury

+8%

$1.22

BitDAO has allocated over $633 million to innovative DAOs!

Ocean Protocol DAO

Ocean Protocol 

+24.5%

$0.57

Turn DATA into money using DataX ā€“ an Ocean Protocol community project.

Popcorn DAO

-3.8%

$1.07

The Popcorn DAO, a humanitarian-focused #DeFi yield generation platform, is bringing its #ESG ethos to life with major announcements: launch of native app Sweet Caramel and partnerships with Olympus DAO & Bankless DAO.

Earth Token Analysis

In this week's analysis, we look at how VitaDAO is using DAO tokens to raise and govern the allocation of capital, together with NFTs that represent IP rights, as a novel Regenerative Finance (ReFi) mechanism to advance Decentralised Science (DeSci), for human longevity, with vitality.

VitaDAO
VitaDAO is using DAO tokens to raise and govern the allocation of capital, together with NFTs that represent IP rights, as a novel Regenerative Finance (ReFi) mechanism to advance Decentralised Science (DeSci), for the good of humanity.

Earth State NFTs

  • Regenerate groundwater with proceeds from the sale of Acre NFT's asset-backed tokens flowing to Ogallala Life, an organisation that is using remote sensing, GIS, IoT and citizen science to promote sustainable agroecosystems.
Acre NFT
All proceeds from this collection go to the non-profit Ogallala Life to help recharge groundwater.
  • Preserving Mandela's historical legacy an NFT digital representation of Nelson Mandela's arrest warrant will go on auction this week in Cape Town to digitally preserve this important historical artefact raise funds for the cash-strapped Liliesleaf Farm Museum, a location that served as the secret headquarters of the ANC, SACP, uMkhonto we Sizwe and the Congress Alliance from 1961 to 1963, and is considered one of South Africaā€™s foremost national heritage sites.

Earth State Technologies

  • AI for Natural Disaster Management was the topic of this week's AI For Good Webinar, in which leading experts explored how these technologies can be being used to detect, forecast and communicate natural hazards and disasters.

Earth States-Person

Adam Bornstein leads the Danish Red Cross Finance and Systems Change Team that is innovating how humanitarian aid gets financed and delivered.

Humanitarian disaster response has a $30 Billion funding gap that continues to widen, as climate emergencies and conflicts are on the rise, exacerbated by pandemics and inflation.

In this week's feature article, Adam reflects on innovating ReFi for humanitarian disaster Response and Recovery, with Cat Bonds and Community Currencies.

Rivers of ReFi Change
Adam Bornstein gives his first-hand account of how the Danish Red Cross is innovating ReFi for financing humanitarian disaster Response and Recovery, with Cat Bonds and Community Currencies.

Earth State Change

The Amazon continues to be decimated by wildfires. These natural and man-made disasters can only be stopped by changing incentives and supporting networks of local agro-forestry projects.

šŸ”„ReFi to stop Wildfires in the Amazon
The Amazon continues to be decimated by wildfires. These natural and man-made disasters can only be stopped by changing incentives and supporting networks of local agro-forestry projects. Ekonavi is showing how ReFi can do this.

Agroforestry follows the rhythm of nature to produce food and lumber whilst preserving and regenerating these disappearing natural ecosystems and their rich biodiversity.

Ekonavi is showing how ReFi has the potential to grow the agro-forestry economy in Brazil by creating a decentralised marketplace, built on the ixo blockchain, and connecting to the Regen Network ecocredits registry, for financing and verifying the impacts of these small-scale farmers.

Earth State Culture

  • Human becomes a Crypto Wallet for Ukraine in what seems to be a world-first, the OG of @DefiHope is getting a QR Code tattoo for making deposits into the UkraineDAO Ethereum wallet address.
  • The Life of a DAO as a cultural phenomenon explores the practices and evolution of DAOs, as a fascinating thought-experiment.
The Lifecycle of a DAO: Inside a Cultural Phenomenon
To think through the cultural practices and evolution of a DAO, we present a thought experiment on the life of a DAO, from birth to death to resurrection.

Earth State Tweet of the Week

ReFi punks ā€“ the new NFT collection on Stargaze Network recognises Regenerative Finance leaders and sales will be channelled into ReFi projects.

Earth State DAOs

Insurtech Lemonade has launched a parametric climate risk transfer initiative that will use blockchain techology and cryptocurrency to deliver affordable climate insurance to the worldā€™s most vulnerable farmers in emerging markets.

Introducing the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition ā€¢ The Lemonade Foundation
Itā€™s a way to leverage blockchain technology to help protect the most vulnerable communities from climate change.

Within the coming year, farmers will be able buy parametric climate or weather insurance using their phones, in global stablecoins or local currencies, and will receive insurance payouts directly to Ā their mobile devices.

Africa has an estimated 300 million smallholder farmers. The majority face real climate risks to their livelihoods, as traditional, indemnity-based insurance is often unaffordable or unavailable to them. This is where the power of the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition comes in: An on-chain solution that can be immediately impactful at scale will allow farmers to finally get financially protected against the increasingly frequent risks such as drought. ā€“Rose Goslinga, co-founder of Pula, a Kenya-based insurtech that specializes in digital and agricultural insurance to de-risk millions of smallholder farmers across Africa.

The Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition has been constituted as a DAO, with well-recognised founding members including Avalanche, Chainlink, DAOstack, Etherisc, Hannover Re, Pula, and Tomorrow.io, and global reinsurance firm Hannover Re.

Lemonade will welcome other crypto investors to fund the DAOā€™s liquidity pool in future.

How Chainlink joining Crypto Climate Coalition DAO can trigger recovery
Chainlink, known to be a market leader in the blockchain oracle solution, became part of an alliance today which brings real-world implications of crypto into existence. While it has a great impact on the network on a developmental front, Chainlinkā€™s investors might also benefit from this announcemeā€¦

This development demonstrates how DAOā€™s can be architected to deliver functionality similar to a special purpose financial vehicle, which can be issued as insurance-linked securities (ILS) and access traditional capital market funding, as has already been successfully demonstrated by the volcano catastrophe bond instrument that was issued through the Red Cross initiative described in this week's lead article.

Earth State News

  • EU ruling on PoW blockchains Ā has not banned mining, but new rules are being drafted to protect consumers and make mining more sustainable.
EU votes down proposal limiting PoW cryptos but sets new draft rules
Europe rejected a ban on proof-of-work cryptos but set draft rules to protect consumers and make mining more sustainable.
  • Ukraine is now issuing NFTs to finance its defence in a way that enables anyone anywhere in the world to help fund the war efforts. After this war disaster response phase, crypto is likely to play an important role in the recovery phase for Ukraine's citizens.
Ukraine Using NFT to Fund War Effort Against Russia
Ukraine is using NFT technology to help fund its war effort against Russia.
  • Connecting Africa for massive digital tech growth Google is landing a subsea Internet cable that will deliver 20x the capacity of similar initiatives. Originating in Portugal, this information super-highway will connect Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa later this year.
Googleā€™s subsea internet cable could spur massive tech growth in Africa ā€” You Exec News
Google landed its Equiano subsea internet cable in Togo, Africa, as part of its $1 billion plan to expand digital infrastructure in the continent. The conduit will reduce internet prices and double most of the continentā€™s internet speed by 2025. Googleā€™s investment plan will lead to explosiv
  • SEC is changing the Climate game for publicly traded companies with a plan to make disclosure on environmental impacts compulsory. Now its up to the legislative process.
SEC will likely require sustainability disclosures from public companies ā€” You Exec News
The SEC has given initial approval to a plan that will soon require all publicly traded companies to disclose the environmental impact of their business operations. It will now give the public and business leaders 60 days to comment on the plan. If the new requirements survive court challenges a

Earth State Actions

  • Read the evidence for community currencies used in crisis response, based on research data from a randomised control trial in Kenya.
Community Currencies as Crisis Response: Results From a Randomized Control Trial in Kenya
This paper presents the results of what may be the worldā€™s first randomized control trial on community currencies, focusing on Grassroots Economics Community Inclusion Currency (CIC) model run on the xDAI blockchain. Beneficiaries in Nairobi, Kenya were sent the equivalent of $30 in cryptocurrency tā€¦
  • Switch off this weekend for Earth Hour to join in the collective consciousness about the fate of nature and think about what we must do as humanity to thrive on planet Earth.
Join One Of The Worldā€™s Largest Movements for Nature | Earth Hour 2022
Join millions of people around the world and switch off your lights in support of nature and our planet on Saturday, 26 March, 2022 at 8:30pm.
  • Listen how Open Forest Protocol is using technology to positively disrupt how reforestation, afforestation and conservation projects are monitored, verified and funded through ReFi.
  • Join the space on Saturday, March 26, where KlimaDAO will is hosting a discussion on Twitter Spaces about how ReFi can contribute to achieving the goals of the Earth Hour global movement.

šŸŒ For the Earth!

ReFi as both a mechanism and a movement for Resilience Finance is a big narrative and economic space that is going to become increasinlgly important as man-made and natural disasters are creating greater threats to human and ecological security. We are seeing concrete examples of how decentralised finance and organisations are using Web3, AI, and tokenisation technologies to get ready, respond, and recover from disasters, in ways that are growing the Tokenised Earth Economy.

Join the weekly Earth State Twitter Space every Tuesday at 15:00 UTC, where we discuss what's moving in ReFi and the Tokenised Earth Economy.


This article is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. For tax advice talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

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