ReFi Generation

Today we get REC’d, and explore the innovative way Jasmine Energy is pairing the renewable energy credit market, aka RECs, with blockchain technology.

Nathalie brings a wealth of knowledge around the renewable energy space and is an excellent bridge between the traditional and the cutting edge. With her electrical engineer degree she has a broad set of skills, from working in energy compliance markets, installing solar & storage for Bitcoin mining operations, to building electric race car engines for Formula 1.

Nathalie’s systems engineering mindset enables her to take complex systems and synthesize them down to understandable concepts. She walks us through the nuanced ecosystem of renewable energy credits and how they represent the clean energy attributes of renewable electricity, as opposed to the physical energy itself. These energy attributes are important because they help us to know how clean grid energy actually is and holds us accountable to sustainability goals.

Jasmine Energy is a REC tracking app and marketplace for bridging renewable energy credits into non fungible tokens on a blockchain. Why blockchain you may ask? The short answer is allowing for liquidity and accountability. RECs are often a secondary revenue stream for solar developers and financiers, and are important for helping renewable energy generators hedge against the fluctuating prices of spot market electricity.

In addition, the traditional over the counter REC market is mostly all voice brokered, often using excel spreadsheets for tracking. REC brokers take a 10-20% fee, which takes away from the profit of renewable energy generators. By putting RECs onto a blockchain, it can more easily be validated when beneficiary claims are retired, reduce the aforementioned broker fees with less friction across a multitude of currencies, and protect against double counting and fraudulent credits.

In this era of environmental catastrophe, we cannot rely on humans using excel spreadsheets to solve the climate crisis. By using Jasmine Energy, we can ensure energy usage is verifiably green. I hope you enjoy.
Show links:
Jasmine Energy Website
Jasmine Energy App
Nathalie's Twitter
RE+
US Green Building Council - California

I love this episode with Will T. from Kingfishers Media LLC because Will is passionate about regenerative knowledge around community building initiatives.
Kingfishers Media provides educational tools and resources for starting a business in Web3. They are a bridge to help onboard people and to make sure people have the knowledge needed to engage in the space in a positive way.
Will seeks to democratize the access to knowledge and bridge the multilingual communication gap and has their learning content in Spanish, Portuguese, French, & Swahili.
This episode gives a refreshing take on how web3 & blockchain technology is a bottom-up paradigm shift from what has historically been a top-down extractive model. Will believes this technology allows everyone to participate in something that is bigger than ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Will, I hope you do too.
Kingfishers Media LLC Website
Kingfishers Media LLC Twitter
Will T's Twitter

In today’s episode we talk with Alessandro Mazzi from Sovereign Nature Initiative. Ale was a joy to talk with and is a wealth of knowledge. He is getting his PHD researching the influence of law on the capacity of human and wildlife to coexist.
Sovereign Nature Initiative works in biodiversity conservation and is sitting in the middle between philanthropic giving & conservation projects. Sovereign Nature Initiative helps to raise funds and do impact reporting. By looking at nature positive solutions, aka conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems, they are creating other ways to value nature rather than the traditional extractive model.
Ale discusses the benefits of using blockchain as a transparent accounting mechanism, thus helping to prove an environmental claim actually happens, and reduces green washing because it ensures accountability.
Ale provides a fantastic look on how dMRV (digital or decentralized measure report & verification) allows for significantly reducing MRV costs - further democratizing the access to MRV tools and monetization mechanisms for regenerative land practices. By working with locals and the stewards themselves, emerging dMRV technology can further reduce the barrier to entry and allow smaller scale projects to participate.
I especially loved Ale’s perspective on biodiversity credits, and how certain species can “activate the carbon cycle” by providing important ecosystem services. We discuss an exciting European Union development for a treaty on biodiversity mandates for corporations.
Ale shares an inspiring project surrounding bison restoration in Romania, where children are leading the monitoring efforts of biodiversity. These youth then educate farmers about the importance of biodiversity. I was left inspired and enthused after talking to Ale, I hope you enjoy this episode.
Sovereign Nature Initiative Linktr.ee
Sovereign Nature Initiative Twitter
Sovereign Nature Initiative Website
WWF European Bison Restoration

In today’s episode I have the pleasure of interviewing TMO of BASIN Protocol for a third time. TMO, AKA Thomas Morgan, having spent the majority of his career in commercial real estate, is the bridge we need for real world assets coming on chain.
TMO discusses the nuances of nature being on the balance sheet, versus nature having its own balance sheet. The former is the old extractive mentality, whereas the latter allows ecosystems to hold their own assets of value.
BASIN as a protocol is aimed to preserve, conserve, and restore more land by building a network of agents that are stewarding & flowing value into ecosystems. The protocol uses financial models that take real value, and then apply a monetary value to ecosystem services, such as pollination, biodiversity, soil health etc.
TMO explains how Basin’s 14 different ecosystems & 18 real values of natural capital fits into the broader Ecological Benefits Framework.
Corporations have personhood in the United States - so why not ecosystems, why not rivers & why not mountains? BASIN is creating structures so that ecosystems can fund themselves, in perpetuity. BASIN is giving land back to nature, where nature owns itself. BASIN is creating mechanisms to perpetually protect ecosystems and land against future lease and sell pressure. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you do as well.
BASIN's Twitter
TMO's Twitter
BASIN.Global
BASIN Field Manual
Confluence.BASIN

In today’s episode we talk with Scott Morris, AKA the Token Jedi. Scott graduated from college with an interdisciplinary degree in political economics amidst the great financial crisis of 2008. What followed is a captivating story of Scott researching and implementing place-based initiatives, because as he puts it, “Place-based organizing in real communities, changing patterns, with real people, will create real outcomes and real value.

Scott is a seasoned veteran when it comes to community currency and I particularly loved this conversation because it is both philosophical and nuanced. We dig deep into what is actually within our means to protect the “main street economy.” To Scott, ReFi can steer us away from a shearing economy towards a sharing economy by making use of new capabilities that allow us to re-localize and re-circulatize our economies. These new capabilities allow for greater monetary pluralism and economic diversity, allowing for back-up systems and safety nets.

We discuss why Bitcoin is important to the world, but also how Scott sees the commodity aspect of Bitcoin being a tool of wealth preservation, whereas the folks who do not necessarily benefit from this are those people living on less than a dollar per day. Scott poses the question of what are certain instruments and strategies to bring people up from the bottom and helps us imagine what benefits a community could reap by using local currencies.

We get an update on what the ReFi DAO is up to, and discuss the ReFi DAO local node incubator: Alert! There is a local ReFi chapter coming your way! Go get involved locally!

Scott truly cares about making place-based systems for economic regeneration happen. I left this conversation inspired, I hope you enjoy it.
The Token Jedi's Twitter
ReFiDAO.com
ReFi DAO Local Communities