Digiconomist has launched a new API for developers to retrieve energy consumption and carbon footprint data on the Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin networks. The respective energy index pages already provide downloadable data on the annualized energy consumption of these networks, but the new API will enable developers to quickly retrieve the total energy consumption and carbon footprint for a specific date.

Moreover, the API will also returns additional metrics that can assist in determining the costs of an operation on a given network. The energy consumption indices already present unweighted averages of the energy consumption and carbon footprints of transactions taking place on the respective networks, but the Digiconomist API provides these metrics at a more granular level (considering transaction outputs or gas units depending on the network), to enable developers to determine a weighted footprint for their operations.

Possible use cases for this data include determining the weighted footprint of a batched transaction or the environmental cost of launching an NFT. It also be used to assess the maximum carbon footprint of a given “gas limit” before a transaction takes place.

The new API will be publicly available and may assist crypto asset service providers in providing more transparency on the environmental costs of their services, as regulators increasingly move to make environmental disclosure a requirement. The full API documentation can be found here.