Sharing his views and work on carbon offset and Trading, footprint and neutrality, Rao said, crypto makes for a brilliant, volatile market. Edited excerpts from the interview:
What is Kichee? Why is it called Bharat’s (India’s) first tradable super sustainable blockchain token? Tell us about this blockchain, its functionality, and its utility? How will it impact the users?
Kichee is Bharat’s first super sustainable blockchain token. Kichee, which is capped with carbon credits, aims to be a crypto instrument enabling individuals and businesses to adopt a carbon-neutral investment smoothly. It has not been done with any blockchain token in the country as yet.
Each Kichee token holds the value of 100 kg of CO2 or equivalent averted emission in a year and is backed on a 1:10 basis by a certified Carbon Credit. Kichee is linked to audited carbon reduction projects like renewable energy, water credits, methane avoidance, plastic recycling, etc. An authorised blockchain auditor audits every minted Kichee token.
With a single Kichee token, one can reduce footprints on different fronts and carbon as it includes credits generated from other emission averting projects like water credits, plastic recycling, waste handling, etc.
The Kichee token can be used for gaming, Metaverse, trading, offsetting emissions, gifting, barter, and digital assets. Corporates can reduce their carbon footprint and attain better ESG ratings using these tokens. They can also use them to achieve Net Zero Targets and become sustainable. Similarly, individuals can contribute to climate change mitigation by reducing their carbon footprint.
Being a wrapped token, the Kichee enables interoperability. Increased interoperability raises liquidity and allows investors to earn fixed income through smart contracts. It also provides users more functionality compared to regular crypto. Smart contracts are self-executing pre-programmed protocols. They are considered a core technology of the blockchain sector.
With the rising carbon emissions and higher gas fees, crypto assets have been criticized highly for environmental degradation. What is your take on it? And what about your token? How are you planning to offset the emission? Is being zero-emission enough, or are you willing to contribute to the positive side of the environment as well?
Every human activity leaves carbon footprints, but there are ways to control emissions. There are a lot of factors that make a crypto asset sustainable. As of now, there has been a significant focus on energy consumption for the mining of the tokens. However, it has to be realised that companies are using renewable energy for mining.
Unlike other cryptocurrencies, wrapped tokens like Kichee are not emission heavy.
By buying a Kichee, which has taken the carbon credit into making a token, one is being climate-conscious and doing their bit for the climate. One can also help the environment as it is like buying carbon credits. Essentially if one is flying and has contributed to carbon pollution, one can buy a Kichee token and burn it and offset carbon credits.
What are the opportunities for you in this spectrum? What are you offering to the investors? Why should investors opt for Kichee over other sustainable tokens? Please explain the niche of Kichee?
People’s interest in cryptocurrencies has skyrocketed in the last few years. The year 2021 can be considered a breakthrough in a lot of ways. It has emerged as a hot topic among investors and in popular culture. But at the same time, the crypto industry is still in nascent stages and constantly evolving.
With regulations and institutional adoption of crypto as payment methods, things will change a lot in the long run. It means that there are enough opportunities in the sector.
When a large population of millennials and GenZ are ready to invest in crypto, they have the risk-taking capacity. Millennials who are far enough into their careers have disposable income for investments and a long time horizon before retirement.
As a wrapped crypto, Kichee provides an opportunity to invest and fight climate change. Kichee offers more with low emissions and the ability to contribute to carbon credits and climate change. In a world heading towards digitalization, decentralization and semocratization, tokens like Kichee have a bright future.
What are your market dynamics? Where are you listing other than India? Which are the non-Indian exchanges you are targeting for listing? Have you onboarded any big investors?
We are very sorted with our market dynamics. Kichee is not for the industries that want to offset their carbon emissions without becoming net zero. Our goal is to reduce current emissions and remove previous emissions from the atmosphere to reverse climate change and avoid dire consequences.
For industries that do not understand this, Kichee is not for them. It will interest all people in the age group of 18 to 50 interested in crypto investments and climate change mitigation, environment protection, carbon offsetting, etc. Communities and people working towards these causes will find Kichee very interesting.
Our plan is to list Kichee on Coinbase, BINANCE, Wazirx, CoinDCX, etc. We have a few individual investors for the bulk minting of Kichee coins, and we have a sound order book way before the pre-listing sale.
Other than carbon emission, what are the other themes that you are bullish on? Which pockets of crypto investors can be seen to redeem decent profits amid the current gloom and volatility?
We have a focus on themes like sustainable development, SDG 2030, net-zero, nationally determined contributions (NDC), climate change mitigation, voluntary industrial actions, digitalising climate change reversal actions, carbon finance, nature-based solutions, voluntary carbon market, bringing climate change mitigation on the blockchain, etc.
Cryptos make for a brilliant, volatile market. Kichee and wrapped tokens give it a fair amount of stability. Kichee will interest everyone. Being a wrapped asset and crypto with a cause, Kichee will attract all pockets of crypto investors. We will understand the investors and their responses only after the launch.
However, we need to make consistent efforts to educate and inform all the market investors about the benefits of holding Kichee. Given the increased environmental concern among people, we are strongly optimistic about the response.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
