This project will provide a white paper for a carbon coin that works in tandem with the existing carbon credit (offset) markets. As an active venture investor in carbon credit markets such as Pachama and Joro Technologies, and a major customer of these offsets with my husband Sergey Brin, I will be leveraging the current entrepreneurial ecosystem to identify the economic, policy, and technological requirements to scale a carbon credit coin.

Relying heavily on my prior research in transaction cost theory, which discussed autonomous (AI) mechanism for information exchange, de-risking, and consensus, I’ll be applying a novel efficiency test (Coasean Mapping) to each step required to fund carbon sequestration projects via a cryptographic carbon coin. It is also worth noting that the integrity of this market requires a net-zero carbon footprint, such that I will also be looking at blockchains with low-to-no carbon emissions. Tezos’ fluid proof of stake blockchain, for example, requires significantly less energy to mine new coins than others, but remains imperfect.

While authors and futurists such as Kim Stanley Robinson (author of Ministry of the Future), have focused on the feasibility of governments issuing carbon coins in exchange for carbon sequestration, my argument is that a private market can first be situated to verify the accuracy of the carbon sequestration projects funded by the coin. The government can in turn, have evidence based results by which to sell government treasuries into the carbon coin network.

Project leader: Nicole Shanahan