A Canadian bitcoin exchange-traded fund aims to offset the effect of climate through tree planting to become the world’s first carbon-negative investment fund.
Accelerate Financial Technologies will plant about 3,450 trees for every $792,655 (or C$1 million) invested in the fund, its founder and CEO, Julian Klymochko, told Insider.
This figure reflects 10% of the 69 control fee foundation issues incurred by the fund for its tree planting initiative.
The carbon offsetting effort, the company said, will first focus on mangrove planting in Madagascar.
The company’s announcement comes as cryptocurrency mining comes under scrutiny for its immense energy consumption. Recent estimates show that the cryptocurrency area uses more energy than entire countries such as Sweden and Malaysia, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
To accelerate is to show that bitcoin can meet the environmental, social and governance criteria that many investors have begun to favor.
The fund can also be purchased in U. S. dollars under the ticker symbol ABTC. U. The United States has not yet approved its own bitcoin ETF.