Energy friendly alternative to Bitcoin

[Ly0n]

We are developing the free command line tool LibreSelery to pay salaries in the form of cryptocurrency to our developers. Since protontypes want to be a sustainable organization we want to offer an energy efficient alternative to Bitcoin in our default configuration. Since Bitcoin is supposed to be the most stable cryptocurrency, we decided to use it in the beginning, but now we want to change to something more energy friendly. Unfortunately I only have basic knowledge about cryptocurrencies. Our requirements are:

1. High currency stability
2. No fee for transaction between market wallets to allow microtransaction with LibreSelery
3. Traded on a crypto market with API access that does not require a commercial account.
4. The market must allow crypto to be sent to any email address without a commercial account.
5. The market must allow the complete transaction history to be obtained through the API for transparency.
6. Support in many countries

Currently we are using the Coinbase API and are actually very satisfied. If it were not for the high energy consumption of Bitcoin. Here is a list of the supported cryptocurrencies: https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/getting-started/general-crypto-education/supported-cryptocurrencies Which cryptocurrency can you recommend based on the requirements? Do you know another market that we can offer as an alternative with more energy friendly cryptocurrencies?

Edit: We also need to check which coin are supported because the API documentation is unclear at this point: https://developers.coinbase.com/api/v2?python#send-money

A bitcoin address, bitcoin cash address, litecoin address, ethereum address, or an email of the recipient

[Ly0n]

I found one alternative that could be better: https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/ripple-xrp-57000-times-more-environmentally-friendly-than-bitcoin-and-ethereum/

[Ly0n]

Unfortunately it seems that the Coinbase API as we use it so far does not support sustainable cryptocurrencies like DAI. The documentation is not clear here:

This one seems to apply https://developers.coinbase.com/api/v2?python#send-money: "Send funds to a bitcoin address, bitcoin cash address, litecoin address, ethereum address, or email address. No transaction fees are required for off blockchain bitcoin transactions.

Therefore we have no way to get away from Bitcoin in the short term.

[nedbat]

Why does it have to be a cryptocurrency? I discovered this project because of a small payment (thanks!!) but I really don't want anything to do with cryptocurrencies, primarily because of their ecological impact.

[Ly0n]

Hey @nedbat. Thanks for your feedback. I totally understand your concerns that's also why we want to switch. Some cryptocurrency solutions like DAI are not based on the Proof of Work concept but are based on proof of stack. That's making them much more energy-friendly. The reason why we have not switched yet is because of the limitations of the coinbase API. They just don't allow us to use the Proof of Work coin way are trading via the automated API.

[nedbat]

It's good to know there are cryptocurrencies based on other ideas. Is there some reason I'm overlooking why dollars or euros wouldn't work?

[Ly0n]

@nedbat: Our goal was to send money to a random email address worldwide. Several APIs like Coinbase or PayPal offer this service. One problem with Paypal was the transaction fees, which had a fixed percentage and an absolute amount per transaction. Coinbase was simply cheaper, as here in Europe there are only total fees of ~3% to get money in and out of the payment system. Coinbase also has no absolute fee on its transaction. So you could also use this payment method for microtransactions.

Another problem was the API permissions. To automate the Paypal API, you need to activate a business account to send money to any email address. Many open source projects have no legal identity, which makes it very difficult to redistribute donations.

The DAI cryptocurrency is actually directly coupled to the dollar. This coin is also traded on Coinbase, unfortunately only the popular currencies are offered via the API, which are unfortunately all based on proof of work.

That's why we want to switch to another solution. I just a good talk with @joelwass who is working on a similar project called Flossbank. Here told me about other solutions like https://coil.com/ or https://interledger.org/.