Inspiration

Cryptocurrency and blockchain mining is very ecologically harmful

What it does

Ecoin, short for Eco-coin is an eco-friendly cryptocurrency that can mitigate the effects of traditional blockchain mining. It achieves this by placing certain restrictions on the miners based on the fuel mix of the power grid in their physical location.

How we built it

How it works:

EcoCoin uses geolocation for miner verification. We use the physical location of the miner to locate them within an area which has at least 50% of the electric grid powered by renewable resources. We use the EPA EGRID dataset to determine the fuel mix of the electricity generated in a particular zipcode. We use Google Geolocation API to determine the zipcode of the miner. If this is the case (>50% renewable energy usage in fuel mix), the miner input is validated in the mining pool otherwise it is rejected. This restriction allows the mining process to be much less damaging and more eco friendly than the traditional blockchain and bitcoin mining process.

React Native app EPA EGRID Dataset Google Geolocation API