A Sovereign Fund's Private Strategy Went Onchain: Coinbase Booked It, Retail Still Cannot Buy It

A tradeable certificate representing one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) of emission reduction or carbon removal. Companies buy carbon credits to 'offset' emissions they can't directly reduce, claiming carbon neutrality. Tokenized carbon credits (like Toucan Protocol's BCT, Moss.Earth's MCO2) move these certificates on-chain, making carbon markets more transparent and preventing double-counting — but underlying <a href="/en/glossary/commodities/carbon-credit/" target="_blank">Carbon Credit</a> quality remains the market's biggest controversy.

Carbon offset is an action or claim — companies buy carbon credits to 'offset' their carbon emissions and claim carbon neutrality. <a href="/en/glossary/commodities/carbon-credit/">Carbon Credit</a> is a tradeable certificate representing 1 tonne of CO₂ equivalent emission reduction. Often confused, but fundamentally different: carbon credits are the instrument, carbon offsetting is the act of using the instrument. Tokenized carbon credits (like BCT, MCO2) bring both concepts on-chain, but underlying quality issues remain the market's central controversy.

Contango is the state in commodity futures markets where far-month contracts are more expensive than near-month contracts. When holding tokenized commodities backed by futures (like tokenized oil), each time you 'roll' an expiring near-month contract to a far-month contract, you must use proceeds from selling the near-month to buy the more expensive far-month — this price difference is called 'rollover loss.' Holding futures-backed commodity tokens in contango, even if spot commodity prices don't move, <a href="https://claude-me.com/en/glossary/core-concepts/token/">Token</a> holders can continuously lose value.