Fig. 1.

The scope of this study investigating the climate impacts of NFT transactions and the proposed technological solutions to process the NFTs sustainably. (A) The prominent ETH network parameters have been integrated with the LCA methodology to investigate the climate impact of NFTs processed on a grid-powered validator network. (B) For a more climate-friendly NFT sector, we evaluate the direct powering of the validators using unutilized renewable energy sources, which require minimum additional capital expenditure. (C) Subsequently, to facilitate location-independent NFT processing, promising energy carriers such as green hydrogen and ammonia have been analyzed as potential alternatives to the direct electricity supply to the validator network. (D) Last, this study evaluates NFTs with net-zero GHG emissions based on behind-the-meter crypto operations and grid electricity in different states utilizing direct air capture (DAC) technology.