Toucan write up

As the blockchain ecosystem grows, let's build a regenerative financial system by design-- weaving climate action into the fabric of web3. Toucan provides Web3 building blocks for a regenerative economy by bridging carbon credits onto public blockchains.

Carbon markets are fragmented, opaque, bureaucratic and hard to access. Intermediaries extract most of the value and constrain the flow of capital to projects on the ground doing the actual work to stabilize the atmosphere. The Toucan Carbon Bridge tokenizes real-world assets (verified carbon credits) on a blockchain-based meta registry. Removing intermediaries and replacing them with transparent economic code (smart contracts) digitizes carbon for efficient and transparent carbon markets, improving money flow to scale up supply.
Toucan acts almost like an API allowing users and protocols to read and write code to interact with the smart contract holding carbon tokens extending the functionality of Toucan’s registry.

Toucan Carbon bridge allows anyone can bring carbon credits from Legacy registries one to one to a carbon token onto the Toucan Registry.

The credit's functionality and its attributes are tied to a smart contract. Credits are valued differently depending on their attributes like project location, the year, co-benefits, methodology used to verify the climate impact, etc.

Anyone with a wallet can hold, buy, sell, and retire carbon tokens. Often, buying a full high-quality carbon token is prohibitively expensive. Traditional registries bundle up expensive retirements on behalf of many users and perform one retirement, resulting in opaque ownership. Users can now buy small portions of credits with Toucan's native fractionalization. Open access data increases transparency and traceability; anyone can query the on-chain registry for transaction history or data on a particular project.

Carbon credits are not fungible. Specifics matter. Toucan Carbon Pools are smart contract accounts that hold a set of carbon tokens. Gating criteria ensure all credits in each carbon pool share a minimum set of attributes. E.g., the Nature Carbon Tonne (NCT) pool only contains carbon offsets from nature-based methodologies with environmental co-benefits. When you purchase credits within a carbon pool, you receive a carbon reference token unique to that carbon pool. This carbon reference token is useful across the decentralized ecosystem and serves as a redeemable coupon for a carbon token in the pool. Anyone can redeem an NCT or BCT for carbon tokens held in the pool and either receive a default token or choose specific carbon credits with particular attributes. Redeemed BCT and NCT tokens can be retired and claimed as a carbon offset.

We can build a range of applications that leverage tokenized carbon credits and pooled liquidity. Toucan has certain interaction points. The 'read' access to the Toucan smart contracts allows you to explore all data available in the meta-registry. Senken, for example, is building a carbon explorer. Senken can fetch data from the registry and input it into an interface where users can purchase specific carbon offsets based on different attributes and co-benefits each creates for the environment. KlimaDAO has increased the demand, and hence the supply of carbon tokens bridged into the decentralized finance ecosystem. Return protocol automatically embeds carbon offsetting into any transaction. Projects like EdenDAO or Solid World will be able to bridge their pre-financed carbon credits on-chain to access liquid markets. Finally, Toucan is launching on Celo to enable access to Toucan's full registry functionality and build new applications to integrate climate positive action across Celo's applications.

Carbon markets put a price on polluting the atmosphere--matching a polluting negative externality with a positive one for a balanced carbon budget. As of April 3rd, 303K CO2 tonnes have been bridged, and 1325 tonnes retired.
With the enhanced utility of carbon credits, we can put verifiable climate action at the core of our everyday financial system– just by having, holding and using money, we can contribute to a regenerative economy.

**NEW VERSION!
**As the blockchain ecosystem grows, let's build a regenerative financial system by design-- weaving climate action into the fabric of web3.

Carbon markets are fragmented, opaque, bureaucratic and hard to access. Intermediaries extract most of the value and constrain the flow of capital to projects on the ground doing the actual work to stabilize the atmosphere. Toucan is a base layer building block to bridge voluntary carbon markets onto public blockchains. Removing intermediaries and replacing them with smart contracts enables transparent and efficient carbon markets, improving money flow to scale up supply. Increasing carbon credit demand and higher price signals catalyze new environmental project development.

The Toucan Carbon Bridge tokenizes real-world assets (verified carbon credits) from Legacy registries one to one to a carbon token on a blockchain-based meta registry. It is a one-way bridge to prevent double-counting as users retire the credits on the source registry before bringing them on-chain.

Anyone with a wallet can hold, buy, sell, and retire carbon tokens. Often, buying a full high-quality carbon token is prohibitively expensive. Traditional registries bundle up expensive retirements on behalf of many users and perform one retirement. Users can now buy small portions of credits with Toucan's native fractionalization.

TCO2 token contracts still carry all the attributes and vintage as credits are valued and traded at different prices depending on their attributes like project location, the year, co-benefits, methodology used to verify the climate impact, etc. Toucan Carbon Pools are smart contract accounts that hold a set of carbon tokens. Gating criteria ensure all credits in each carbon pool share a minimum set of attributes. E.g., the Nature Carbon Tonne (NCT) pool only contains carbon offsets from nature-based methodologies with environmental co-benefits.

When you purchase credits within a carbon pool, you receive a carbon reference token (TCO2) that is useful across the decentralized ecosystem. TCO2 serves as a redeemable coupon for a carbon token in the pool. When users redeem an NCT or BCT for carbon tokens held in the pool they can receive a default or choose specific carbon credits with particular attributes. Redeemed BCT and NCT tokens can be retired and claimed as a carbon offset.

Toucan acts like an API allowing users and protocols to read and write code to interact with the smart contract holding carbon tokens extending the functionality of Toucan’s registry. Web3 projects can leverage tokenized carbon credits and pooled liquidity and build with Toucan to redirect a portion of the value created towards regenerative initiatives. Senken, for example, builds a carbon explorer and leverages the "read' access to smart contracts to query the on-chain registry for transaction history or data on a particular project. Senken inputs the data onto an interface where users can purchase carbon offsets based on different co-benefits for the environment. KlimaDAO locks BCT in their treasury to create a carbon-backed cryptocurrency increasing the carbon tokens demand. Return protocol automatically embeds carbon offsetting into any transaction. EdenDAO or Solid World will be able to bridge their pre-financed carbon credits on-chain to access liquid markets. Finally, Toucan is launching on Celo to enable access to Toucan's full registry functionality and build new applications to integrate climate positive action across Celo's applications.

Carbon markets put a price on polluting the atmosphere--matching a polluting negative externality with a positive one for a balanced carbon budget. As of April 3rd, there are 18M CO2 tonnes bridged and 167 projects tokenized.

With the enhanced utility of carbon credits, we can put verifiable climate action at the core of our everyday financial system– just by having, holding and using money, we can contribute to a regenerative economy.