Accelerate will execute a global tree-planting campaign to offset bitcoin related emissions.

Accelerate Financial Technologies’ world-first Carbon Negative Bitcoin ETF (TSE: ABTC), now trading on the TSE, offsets more than 100% (“negative”) of the estimated carbon emissions from associated bitcoin mining and transaction activities. (Accelerate)

Accelerate Carbon-Negative Bitcoin ETF (ABTC)

The fund provides exposure to bitcoin via derivatives.

Though the fund’s exposure may therefore be considered indirect, the fund will nevertheless invest in decarbonization efforts to sequester over 100% of the estimated carbon dioxide emissions that can be attributed to its derivative bitcoin transactions.

According to the firm’s founder and CEO Julian Klymochko, bitcoin suffers from an environmental perspective due to its energy-intensive proof of work algorithm. That counteracts the crypto’s strong virtues of governance due to its distributed authority and immutable blockchain. It is also not possible for central banks or governments to manipulate bitcoin, and therefore the cryptocurrency may be considered a predictable supply of truly sovereign money.

“Environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns are top of mind for investors,” said Klymochko. “From an ESG perspective, historically, bitcoin has had a mixed track record.”

Sequestering carbon via tree-planting

Accelerate will seek a carbon-negative status by executing a global tree-planting campaign to sequester carbon emissions in collaboration with H3M Environmental, a leading third-party environmental specialist.

H3M Environmental audited the fund’s environmental claims and model regarding the new ETF.

“They determined that our tree-planting decarbonisation initiative sequestered over 60x the CO2 emissions produced by the ETF’s bitcoin transactions,” Kymochko said.

The model works like this: The fund will plant mangrove trees in Madagascar to offset the approximate one net tonne of carbon dioxide to be sequestered per year for each $1,000 investment in ABTC.

The fund will allocate up to 10% of its 0.69% management fee towards its annual tree-planting campaign.

“The Accelerate Carbon-Negative Bitcoin ETF allows investors to diversify their portfolios while helping to fight climate change,” Klymochko said.

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