Rebuild your credit with green crypto

All too often these days I see posts, videos and sometimes ads about ‘rebuilding’ your credit, or ‘green crypto’ so what I decided to do is a bit different, incorporate these concepts together for a younger generation and include some of my own tried-and-true methods to achieve a green-credit equilibrium.

According to slightlyunconventional: “CO2 emissions vary greatly per person but the average American produces about 19.78 metric tonnes (21.8 tons) of CO2 emissions each year. Australians produce even more at 20.6 tonnes per person per year while German citizens only product 10.4 tonnes per person per year.”
(For my fellow Canadian’s ourworldindata says: “and Canada at 15.6 tonnes. This is more than 3 times higher than the global average, which in 2017 was 4.8 tonnes per person.)”

My methods involve a combination of green-crypto in the form of ‘cashback’ and ‘carbon offsets’ based on tree’s purchased to absorb your carbon.
According to ecotree “[trees] give an average range of 10 to 50kg of CO2 absorbed per tree per year.”

So the average person in North America would have to plant about around 800 tree’s (pXy) in their lifetime to absorb their yearly carbon use.

In 2013 I asked in a piece at Wired if social media wastes electricity.
Many people jumped on the bandwagon and later even applied that thought-process to crypto currency.

I’m someone who is in favor of and trying to set up a Crypto-Climate accord.

First in order to (fix) or (build) your credit, you need to understand credit and credit products.

You’ll hear daunting terms like ‘hard/soft pull’, ‘utilization’ etc.
And sometimes peoples brains just shut off, like ‘no thank you!’.
I’ve personally seen peoples eyes glaze over and they go into ‘uh huh’ mode.

That’s fine, that’s normal. But it’s not practical. So I’ll focus on the features you can use today and leave the ‘deep dive’ into the mechanics of it all for another person to answer.

Above I mentioned cashback options, now many people use crypto as an inflation hedge, often times they will purchase and hold (not to be confused with hodl) crypto assets.
Now the problem with this in financial theory is the rates of exchange is some processors charge upwards of 3.5% to purchase your crypto asset and ‘physically’ own it.
So if you’re looking to hedge against a 2% inflation rate, initially you need a 5% (or more) gain on the principle amount just to properly hedge against inflation.

You can utilize cash-back options that allow you to get a percent back with each purchase; a personal favourite of mine is Mogo.
They’re a great example of a forward thinking company.
For one you get free credit monitoring (sure there’s lots of companies that offer this) but having all these features in one product is super-convenient.
But they also give you 2% cashback on purchases (They give you your very own visa card) but the best part is they have partnered with Veritree and offset carbon by planting a tree with every purchase you make.
The 2% cashback in this case is delivered as Satoshi’s.

Beyond that, there’s credit building products, these function the same way if you got a line of credit. There’s many suites of products like this, where they offset a portion of funds, and you pay a percentage over time to show your credit worthiness.

A personal favourite of mine is Koho.
They too offer free credit score monitoring. But they also offer this particular type of credit building option. At $7/$9 a month that quite the incentive.
They also offer 0.5–2% or more off of purchases (depending on the type) they’ve also partnered with retailers and restaurants.
You also get a virtual card that can be turned off with the click of a button, which is handy if you’re worried about having your information stolen.
But the best part is when these products are used together.

Koho functions more or less like a bank, where Mogo functions like a prepaid credit card. You can use your Koho account to fund your Mogo account for purchases and enjoy cashback just for moving your money around.

But we’re not done yet, let me introduce you to the ultimate option.
Crypto.com offers more than a visa card (normally 2% with upto 8% cashback) they also offer the ability to buy, hold and trade crypto as well as a wallet feature.
But the genius of it is that when all these products are used together, the cashback stacks.
So 2%+2%+2% becomes 6% cashback, you’re essentially making money, just funding your account. So the 3.5% initial purchase cost and 2% inflation rate are basically non-existent and you can focus on growing your principle as well as your credit score.

So if you use your Koho account to fund your Mogo account, you’re building your credit score, then you use your Mogo card to fund your crypto account and garner 2% cashback in bitcoin and plant tree’s, then your Crypto assets become green through the virtue of how you’re purchasing them.
Ideally you could do this for other things you already buy with your credit card, but taking an extra 5 minutes to fund each account means less of your money going out, you’re making your purchases more green and hedging against inflation all while earning money that is otherwise lost as transactions and building your credit.

You’re essentially getting all this for free, and the only real cost would be the credit building option and if you choose premium options with your card providers.

This isn’t a sponsored post, I personally have used these products and did the due diligence and testing and moving funds back and forth and can personally attest that not only does this work, I’m kicking myself for losing as much as 10% on all my purchases over a lifetime.
I’ve been using these products for years and I’m very happy with each of them, I’m well aware of other products that offer the same features but I wouldn’t endorse them without first trying them out.

But maybe you’re not holding Cardano trying to invest greenly, maybe you’re more of a stock person. But maybe your stock portfolio isn’t as green.
That’s fine too, because Wealthsimple, the app that let’s you buy and sell stock also now offers a cash card with some impressive features.
It all operates with the same aspects;
But instead of koho->mogo->crypto.com
You’d transfer koho->mogo->wealthsimple
And presto: green-stocks.

The best way to look at it is that you’re already spending X every month to live.

If you could get just 2% of X back, how much would you have monthly?

I don’t care if you’ve been with your bank for 1 year, 10 years, or 25 years.

If you’re spending off your debit card, you could be getting as much as 10% cashback right now.

If you’re spending off your credit card, you’re spending 18% more each year than you need to.

Why not switch to companies that not only reward you for your business with them and let you keep more of your money, but also try to make the world a better place?

The question you need to be asking yourself is, “Can you stand losing money for just one more day?”

As we grow together, we teach each other. We learn from each other.

There are things we can do today to offset our carbon, reclaim our finances, and even build or fix our credit.

No matter your income level, 2% cashback is better than 18% interest.