3 Ways to Reduce the Climate Impact of Your Web3 Data

By George Trujillo, Chief Data Strategist, DataStax

Web3 is already well established as a technology ecosystem that allows developers to build decentralized applications. But his reliance on blockchain technology has also raised concerns about its impact on the environment.

The process of verifying transactions in a blockchain requires a huge amount of processing power and therefore a lot of electricity. One bitcoin transaction consumes approximately 635 kWh of energy or the same amount of electricity used by 21 US households per day.

Blockchain is a critical part of Web3, but to take full advantage of what this new decentralized world provides, data running Web3 applications will need to be collected, processed and analyzed in real time, outside the blockchain. To be as energy-efficient as possible, businesses need to pay special attention to how they process all data in real time outside the blockchain.

Here are some ideas on how to manage real-time data that keeps your Web3 applications sustainable.

What matters is where and how you store your data

Blockchain is the main building block of Web3: it creates a distributed book and acts as a recording system for the transactions that take place in this bold new world. But data running Web3 applications is collected, processed, analyzed and stored outside the blockchain.

This is good for several reasons. Blockchain performance is not fast enough to build real-time engaging applications that consume data (and highly responsive dashboards, referral engines, digital wallets, and analytics needed to support those applications). Even if the blockchain was responsive enough to process this type of data, the amount of processing power required would be exceptional.

A smart way to “decarbonise” your Web3 applications is to be aware of the resources that all your data requires.

Hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft and Google – the technology titans who run massive computing infrastructure to enable the rest of us to build virtualized computing environments) all have plans to achieve the goal of running their data centers at 100% renewable energy within of the next decade.

This is great news, but there is still work to be done. You need to make sure that you use the least amount of calculations and infrastructure yourself. On the one hand, you need to take advantage of tools that use AI to help you identify “abandoned projects”: secured infrastructure that doesn’t work.

Another simple but important part of this approach is to have your own teams focused on optimizing cloud usage. Facebook, for example, succeeded 25% reduction in calculations and storage just by optimizing WhatsApp without losing performance. Ultimately: use only what you need and look for the savings from your use.

Focus on consumption-based services

Another important way to reduce the impact of your Web3 data that is outside the blockchain is to use products and services that reduce the capacity required. Switching to server-free architectures is a critical part of reducing resource consumption and therefore emissions. It is estimated that hyperscaler utilization is still below 50%. The provision of services based on infrastructure units or with pricing models that are fixed to nodes or servers is a major reason for this inactive consumption.

Excessive security and specialized agencies exacerbate the problem. This is the same model that existed when we switched from physical machines to virtual machines and containers: usage improved a little, but it was not radically different. To decarbonise cloud services, it is crucial that any cloud service used is based on a server-free architecture where you pay for consumption that is more closely related to your actual use – and therefore your impact on carbon.

For example, DataStax Astra DB, the serverless database as a service built on Apache Cassandra^®, scales elastically to peak loads. This auto-scaling capability also reduces database resources when they are not needed, automatically eliminating wasteful CPU usage.

Take a good look at yourself

It is important to have a clear view of the carbon impact of using your cloud. This means that all services used in all hyperscalers must be consolidated in a way that your organization can instrument, inspect, analyze and account for your corporate goals. All cloud services you use from third parties must also be integrated into this reporting. Under a recent SEC proposal, organizations will be required to report their greenhouse gas emissions – along with those of their supply chains. This is another reason to integrate the use of your cloud service into your corporate environment, social reporting and management reporting (ESG).

Don’t be a Car3 carnivore

In the rush to build Web3 applications, it’s easy to overlook the responsibilities and management needed to deploy this stack in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Knowing how best to use the blockchain will ensure a modern real-time experience and the value your customers expect, while minimizing environmental impact as much as possible.

Learn more about DataStax here.

About George Trujillo:

George is the Chief Data Strategist at DataStax. He has previously built high-performance teams for data-driven initiatives in organizations including Charles Schwab, Overstock and VMware. George is working with CDOs and data managers on the ongoing development of real-time data strategies for their corporate data ecosystem.