Crypto is a part of our journey, but it alone is not the way — Ecology impact and how to help our planet.

At Wingriders we try to see beyond the code. Crypto is revolutionizing the way we interact with each other, however, we still live, love and grow as humans on Earth. For an industry so focused on world betterment, there’s been a surprisingly low number of Environmental Responsibility projects from companies in the industry, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. SingleEarth, Cryptoclimate, Binance). We would like to see more projects think about how they can give back or support worthy causes. Our industry needs to work harder than most to show that we are responsible actors and support our communities.

At WingRiders, we feel strongly that this type of thinking needs to be built into the DNA of a project. It’s clear that man made issues are causing damage to our environment raging havoc for our remaining wilderness. The linked climate impact hinders our ability to access goods and services. It’s also possible that long term changes to our ecology and climate can worsen pandemics. According to Stand for the Trees, an NGO, 137 species of animals, plants and insects are wiped out every day. If we take concerted action, it is possible to mitigate some of these effects. There are many environmental topics but wilderness (and its preservation and ideally expansion) is one of the toughest to put ROI to. Because of this it is often the last when it comes to structural change. Driven by this, Wingriders will use a substantial amount of its earnings to revitalize the wilderness of our planet. Funded by transactions, directed by the community — an impact driven ecology fund is born.

But what does it mean that we want to create an ecology impact fund? Well, first of all it will not be easy, we accept this. Yet we decided to announce early in our road map so that we all can be held accountable. The aim is for this to be a core part of the project, and governed transparently by the Dao Governance. It is not a ”greenwashing” sidechain vanity project. From the overall tokenomics of the project a significant percentage will be allocated to bootstrapping the fund and establishing a budget.

As such, we will allocate 3% of our total token supply and potentially even a percentage of the fees accumulated in our Treasury platform to the WingRiders Ecology Fund (WREF). The power and potential of DeFi should be used for a cause benefiting the real world. The fund will be overseen by the WingRiders Dao (more on this in a coming blog) and will accrue funds for distribution on a regular basis. These funds will be delegated to recognized and reputable ecology focused nonprofits and NGO’s working in different regions around the world, mainly in the area of rewilding of our planet. Currently we are considering the method of selection and distribution, and we will update this post with further details. Our preferred concept is to distribute the tokens after a regular period (month, quarter etc.) and distribute to the top 1–5 countries potentially identified by the IP addresses of users. This allows our community power over selection, and also allows for the community to select and submit charities in their local jurisdiction for review and approval. The aim is to engage the community, and to drive some of the value derived from the platform back to the environment. Crypto exists wholly online, but we do not.

We also would like to express our desire to work or partner with any other crypto projects, exchanges, or groups on this initiative — as we said earlier, we are not considering this a marketing activity, we’d be happy to work with anyone whos values and goal aligns with the WREF. For more collaboration suggestions on the fund, or to request more information, get in touch at [email protected]

Let us take care of this blue dot of ours as it took care of us to develop here among the stars!