Toucan Protocol

Toucan's original on-chain infrastructure for tokenizing verified carbon credits. A credit issued by a conventional registry (e.g. Verra) was retired off-chain and a matching TCO2 token minted on Polygon, one token per tonne of CO2. This retirement-based bridging was the mechanism Verra prohibited in May 2022; Toucan has since shifted toward registry-native and 'immobilized'/bi-directional bridging (e.g. its Puro.earth bridge).

A tokenized carbon credit. Each TCO2 is 1:1 linked to a specific real-world credit and carries that credit's attributes (project, vintage, methodology). Only TCO2s can be retired to claim the underlying climate benefit; carbon pool reference tokens must first be redeemed for TCO2s before retirement.

Toucan's first carbon reference token and pool, launched October 2021 alongside KlimaDAO. The BCT pool accepts a broad range of tokenized credits (fungible carbon commodity). BCT became the liquidity backbone for on-chain carbon, seeing multi-billion-dollar trading volume in its first weeks.

A more restrictive reference token/pool that accepts only nature-based credits (e.g. reforestation, conservation) using nature-based methodologies from 2012 onward. Designed to give higher-integrity, nature-focused exposure versus the broad BCT pool.

Smart-contract pools that bundle eligible TCO2s into fungible reference tokens (BCT, NCT) subject to on-chain 'pool acceptance criteria' (methodology, vintage, region). Pools provide deep liquidity and price discovery for otherwise heterogeneous carbon credits.

An automated bridge launched October 2023 connecting Toucan to Puro.earth's carbon standard, enabling instant settlement of engineered carbon-removal credits. This forms the basis of newer removal-focused products such as CHAR (biochar credits, launched March 2024).