The most-transacted project types by volume in 2016 were: REDD+, wind, landfill methane, large hydropower, and community-focused energy efficiency

avoided deforestation and the installation of solar panels

Protocol-Owned EcoAsset Treasury

Some portion of token emissions (“inflation”) could go to purchasing some portion of newly minted ecocredits. Over time, this would build a protocol-owned treasury of ecological assets, essentially making the REGEN token ecologically backed, and would also reward REGEN tokens (and governance rights, if staked) to new project owners. There are a number of questions to answer in this scenario: 1) what percentage of emissions? 2) what percentage of a batch? 3) what would be the eligibility criteria for credit classes? 4) would the chain intend to hold these assets indefinitely, or would there be instances where the protocol would sell some portion of this treasury? 5) how would permanence be factored into treasury reserve management (credits have a limited lifetime, established in their credit class). Forward Contracts

This example may utilize a combination of both the on-chain ecoasset treasury, as well as the insurance pools examples.

As mentioned, Regen Network would like to transition landscapes and waterscapes to regenerative management. Although credits are important, as they compensate for regenerative work, they are “ex post,” meaning that they pay out after a quantified amount of regeneration has been achieved. But what if you need capital to fund investment and labor up front? Then you need forward contracting—paying for the rights to credits to be produced in the future. Regen Network already has partners in this domain at Earthbanc, RUUTS, and others. Earthbanc has been working on forward contract functionality with the UNCCD, targeting 2.5 billion hectares of land regeneration. What if a portion of Regen inflation went to purchasing forward contracts? These forward contracts could then be rolled into the protocol-owned treasury as royalties based yield generating assets, which can generate royalties for 20 to 30 years. The royalties payments from these assets could go to purchasing more forward contracts (funding more regeneration). Additionally, projects selling forward contracts to the protocol could list their credits on Regen Ledger and Marketplace, building further synergies. In order to be conservative, there are protocols that are being revised/designed to estimate the potential sequestration of a piece of land under certain management, so that only a fraction of the potential number of credits to be generated could be sold in advance.

number and cost of weather and climate disasters

cost of doing business

each one-% increase in soil organic matter results in an increase in an average water retention of 50,000 gallons per hectare / reward for the verified outcome

Insurance Pools

Currently, insurance for EcoCredits occurs at the credit class level. For example, say an agroforestry project issues 100 carbon credits. Ten years later, and audit is performed, and there’s only found to be 95 tons of carbon currently in the system. Generally, in this instance, the credit holder would be paid out an additional five credits to “make them whole.” These credits would come from a pool created during the establishment of the project. That said, there are economics of scale that can be harnessed by creating protocol-level insurance funds. This would require the consent of the credit purchasers (as if it was a protocol-level insurance fund, they would be getting paid out in a different credit than they had purchased in the first place). Also, some of the communities we work with experience hyperinflation, and would be very interested in ways that working with Regen Network would hedge their foreign-exchange risk. That said, this may be dealt with more at the credit class level than at the tokenomic level.

farmer livelihood improvement and holistic regenerative agricultural methods

Credibility

Community participation (by purchasing?)

investments in agri-food tech startups

ownership and control of data

Compensating Scientific Contributors

Compensating open science contribution has long been a desire for Regen Network, and we believe is a foundational public good for Regen Network to succeed in “out cooperating the competition.” An exploration of if/how this can be incorporated into our incentive stack is an important part of this RFP.