Unnatural Causes: Cryptocurrencies, Carbon Credits, and the rise of Neoliberalism from Below

ABSTRACT Klima is a carbon‐backed cryptocurrency running as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). In 2021, it had accumulated 9 million metric tons of digital carbon credits and reached a market value of more than US$1 billion. In 2023, its treasury stored twice as many carbon credits, but its spot price was a tiny fraction compared to 2021. Building on prior scholarship at the intersection of carbon markets and cryptocurrencies, we probe the devices employed by Klima during its rise and fall and how this cryptocurrency also sought to create its own carbon market. Unlike earlier studies of carbon markets and cryptocurrencies, we explore KlimaDAO's internal dynamics as it tried to create a new connection to existing carbon markets through a two‐year‐long digital ethnography, showing how the project and its investors embraced speculative reasoning fueled by what we term a neoliberal logic. This rhetoric sustained the project's growth and exacerbated the losses. Finally, we recognize it as the main driver of KlimaDAO's viability. Our conclusions speak to the broader critical debates about the politics of green finance and how climate mitigation has emerged as a vector to attract small investors and blockchain enthusiasts rather than impacting climate change.