Mogo will plant trees for every bitcoin purchased on its platform.

Canadian fintech Mogo Inc (NASDAQ:MOGO) pioneered MogoCard, the Mogo Visa Platinum Prepaid Card that is climate-friendly because every time the card is used, a carbon-sucking tree gets planted for free. The company is extending that concept to transforming bitcoin, a cryptocurrency noted for its emission-intensive ‘mining’ process, into “green,” or carbon-positive bitcoin, a world-first. (CROWDFUND INSIDER)

For every bitcoin purchased through its platform, the fintech will plant enough trees to completely offset the CO2 emissions produced by mining that bitcoin —and then some. It will also apply the tree-planting to bitcoin already held by its users.

Mogo: Helping address climate concerns around bitcoin

Mogo’s mission is to let more Canadian’s participate in the booming digital assets and crypto space by alleviating their concerns surrounding the adverse climatic impact from the energy used for mining bitcoin.

“Bitcoin is the best performing asset class of the past decade with massive inflows of capital daily,” said David Feller, CEO. “But the tremendous potential of bitcoin is hindered by its environmental impact; the emissions created by mining are among the greatest problems facing this asset class today.

According to the company, for each bitcoin mined, an estimated 421,000 lbs of CO2 emissions are released into Earth’s atmosphere.

The solution

“To address the magnitude of this problem, Mogo will plant trees to offset 500,000 lbs of CO2 for each bitcoin on its platform,” the company said in a statement. “This action offsets 79,000 lbs of CO2 more than is produced by mining each bitcoin, and effectively turns a Mogo bitcoin investment into climate action.”

“By launching ‘green’ bitcoin, we’ve made buying bitcoin good for the planet and arguably one of the most ESG-oriented investments anyone can make,” added Feller.

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