Right now, climate change has become one of the most critical issues facing the world. It affects everyone who lives on this planet and, if left unaddressed, could have serious, lasting consequences for all of humanity. That’s why carbon credits have been targeted across all sectors, not just the most obvious ones power, agriculture and forestry. And one of these sectors is blockchain technology.

The strengths of blockchain technology, such as transparency, secure record-keeping, and decentralization, are advantages for carbon credits.

That’s why many carbon cryptocurrency companies are already in the works. There is a huge opportunity here for two of today’s biggest investment trends to develop their synergies.

With that said, let’s take a look at what some of the most promising carbon cryptocurrency companies are for 2024.

1. KlimaDAO

At the top of our list is one of the first big movers in the cryptocarbon space: KlimaDAO, also known by the KLIMA coin. Its goal is to accelerate the rate at which the price of carbon emissions rises. And this happens by purchasing and withdrawing carbon offsets.

How are they doing this?

First, carbon offset credits are purchased from Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard registry, which guarantees their quality. These credits are withdrawn and then minted as tokens via the Toucan protocol (more on this later). These tokens are known as commodity carbon tons (BCTs).

• Each BCT represents one ton of carbon removed from the atmosphere.

Each KLIMA coin is backed by at least one ton of carbon base. KLIMA coin owners are incentivized to increase their stake of the coin by tying up more BCT or staking their holdings for yield.

There’s a lot to explain when it comes to KlimaDAO, but the impact it has had so far is undeniable. Last year, KlimaDAO bought 2% of the whole voluntary carbon market. And as of this writing, KlimaDAO is retired 17.3 million tons of carbon offsets:

This is what a small country like Croatia emits every year.

Although KlimaDAO provides a floor price for voluntary carbon markets, its success will not be decided by the performance of voluntary carbon markets. As with all crypto projects, the most important factor is whether people actually want to adopt it or not.

KlimaDAO is still in a growth phase, so to speak, as it looks to expand its treasury and provide a more robust offering. The coin’s developers do not expect a stable price to be reached before mid-century.

However, KLIMA has been implemented for over a year now and has already had great success in the carbon markets. Many other carbon crypto projects are still stuck in the development stage. KlimaDAO may have an ambitious goal, but it has proven that its business model has legs to stand on.

2. Tucano Protocol

As mentioned earlier in our discussion on KlimaDAO, the Tucano protocol it is not a currency in and of itself. Instead, it is the infrastructure that helps cryptocarbon projects like KlimaDAO exist.

Simply put, Toucan is a bridging protocol that transforms real life carbon credits into tokens that can actually be used on a blockchain. These tokens, called tokenized CO2 or TCO2, represent retired but not yet claimed carbon offsets.

They have been withdrawn from the source register to avoid double counting, but have not actually been claimed against any issues yet. And so they still represent a specific amount of verified carbon offsets.

• TCO2s are semi-fungible: they are not all identical, as the information about the origin of each credit is encoded directly on the chain. However, similar credits can be broken down and pooled into carbon pools, where they can be traded.

The largest and most well-known carbon pool using the Toucan protocol would be the basic carbon ton (BCT) used by KlimaDAO.

The majority of carbon credits filled by Toucan went to the BCT pool made up of Ethereum Request for Comment 20 (ERC-20) tokens.

These ERC-20 tokens can be directly integrated into other DeFi applications.

Toucan was the first platform to enable tokenization of carbon creditsand they have several partners besides just KlimaDAO. They have a first-mover advantage in this space and have created their own in-house token, the Nature Carbon Tonne (NCT) for buyers of carbon credits.

With a number of other major carbon crypto companies choosing to build on Toucan’s infrastructure instead of developing their own, there’s a lot of potential for future growth here.

3. Moss

Similar to the toucan, Moss is focused on tokenizing real-life carbon-related assets.

A Brazilian company, Moss, has its own token, the MCO2 token, which is created by tokenizing verified carbon credits from sources like Verra. Each MCO2 token represents one ton of carbon offsets, with a particular focus on credits generated by forest conservation projects in Amazon rainforest.

With its token, Moss focuses on providing a platform for companies and individuals interested in offsetting their carbon emissions to purchase high-quality, fully transparent carbon credits.

• Moss also has a side NFT project about the Amazon rainforest.

Moss first purchased several plots of land in the Amazon rainforest, divided them into 1-hectare lots, and then sold them as NFTs.

Funds from each NFT sale have been earmarked for a 30-year conservation fund that will cover the costs of activities such as patrolling and satellite imagery to protect the area.

The ultimate goal of this project would be to create a “green wall” around part of the Amazon rainforest to block deforestation efforts. Moss has sold out three sets of these NFTs, and more releases are on the way.

With several Brazilian carbon credit deals locked to supply MCO2 tokens in addition to the NFT series sold out, Moss is another of the few carbon-related cryptocurrency companies that has actually implemented a successful solution to the markets.

4. Nori

A carbon removal marketplace that focuses on coordinating transactions between small farm suppliers and carbon credit buyers, Me neither has not yet launched its own token. Instead, Nori understandably chose to start by ensuring its business model was solid and started with a pilot program.

By partnering with US farmers practicing regenerative agriculture, Nori has secured a number of national suppliers of high-quality carbon credits. Some of these providers are shown below:

The top layer of soil is actually one of mother nature’s largest natural carbon sinks, containing three times more carbon than the entire atmosphere.

However, human agriculture has caused carbon to be released from the soil much faster than the rate at which it is replaced.

This loss of soil carbon is Nori’s goal, focusing on regenerative agriculture projects. The end goal of every project is some form of carbon sequestration known as soil carbon storage, which produces carbon credits.

• These carbon credits make up Nori’s main resource, Nori Carbon Removal Tonne (NRT).

Each NRT represents one tonne of CO2 removed, stored for a minimum of ten years and is independently verified and audited to ensure that each NRT actually represents one tonne of carbon properly sequestered.

Going forward, Nori plans to not only expand its supply partnerships to international agricultural companies, but also intends to tokenize its NRTs into NORI tokens.

These NORI tokens will be distributed on the Polygon sustainable network. This creates an accessible secondary market for Nori NRTs with all the associated benefits of being on a blockchain.

Polygon is one of the leading Ethereum Layer 2 solutions and is currently the tenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Polygon partnered with KlimaDAO early last year to become carbon negative by purchasing – these names may be familiar – BCT and MCO2 tokens.

With its business model demonstrated by the pilot program, Nori partnered with Bayer AG. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical and agricultural companies in the world, intent on increasing its supply of NRT.

• The initial tranche of the deal, worth $14.4 million, covers 400,000 acres of agricultural land.

Nori plans to distribute its token later this year. This launch, combined with the partnership with Bayer, has made 2023 a truly exciting year for Nori.

5. DevvStream

Rounding out our list of cryptocarbon companies to watch is one that’s a little less focused on cryptocurrencies.

DevvStreamat first glance, it’s a carbon streaming company that provides capital for carbon credit projects in exchange for a share of future production.

Where cryptocurrencies come into play, however, is through DevvStream’s relationship with its parent company, Devvio.

Devvio has a proprietary blockchain-based platform Exg platform that DevvStream uses to chain the carbon credits it gets from its streaming deals.

• Once on the platform, DevvStream carbon credits gain many of the benefits that other carbon token projects enjoy.

On top of this, DevvStream gets priority access to Devvio’s commercial clientele who already use the latter’s ESG platform. If any of these customers are looking for carbon credits, DevvStream’s customers will be the first ones they check.

Besides that, DevvStream has also collaborated with the largest volunteer carbon exchange in the world, Xpansiv. The goal is to provide additional liquidity for its carbon credits.

With its access to Devvio’s blockchain ESG platform and its clients, as well Xpansiv’s carbon credit exchangeDevvStream is uniquely positioned among leading carbon crypto companies to make the most of the carbon credits it is placing on the blockchain.

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