---
title: a registry is not a market
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/a-registry-is-not-a-market
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/a-registry-is-not-a-market.md
subtitle: a serial number in a pdf is a ledger entry. a ledger that cannot compose is a filing cabinet
category: onchain
---

# a registry is not a market

*a serial number in a pdf is a ledger entry. a ledger that cannot compose is a filing cabinet*

A **carbon credit registry** is an account book. It issues serialized units under one standard, holds them in named accounts, transfers them from seller to buyer, and retires them when someone uses them to make a claim. Verra, Gold Standard, ACR, Climate Action Reserve and Puro.earth each run one. The UN now runs one too, for the Paris Agreement's new crediting mechanism.

Now the thing the book is about. A blanket bog in the Flow Country of northern Scotland holds water and carbon for as long as it stays wet. It did that before the first registry opened, and it does it whether or not anyone issues a unit for it. Drain it and the carbon leaves as gas, serial number or not. A registry keeps a count about the bog. [*ensurance*](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) funds the bog's condition. Neither one is the bog.

We think the registry and the market are two different things. Our bet is that money for living systems ends up on a ledger other people can build on, with the registry kept for what it does best.

:::johnson
**a serial number is a ledger entry. a ledger nobody else can build on is a filing cabinet.** A good filing cabinet is worth having, because it keeps the count honest. It cannot move money by itself, and no ledger of any kind keeps a bog wet.

[see coins that live on an open ledger →](/general?from=guide)
:::

## what a carbon credit registry is

### what is a carbon credit registry?

A registry is the record of who holds which units under one standard. Four verbs cover almost everything it does.

| step | what the registry records | what it guarantees |
|---|---|---|
| issue | a block of serial numbers for a verified project and vintage | the unit exists only after the standard accepts the verification |
| hold | which account owns which serials | one owner per serial at a time |
| transfer | a serial moving from the seller's account to the buyer's | the sale is recorded; the deal itself was struck elsewhere |
| retire | a serial taken out of circulation against a named claim | it cannot be sold or used again |

The serial number is the whole design. It ties one unit to one project, vintage, methodology and verification. That lets a buyer say exactly which tonne they retired. It is also why no two credits are quite the same thing, which is the question [a credit judged as money](/guide/a-credit-judged-as-money?from=guide) takes up.

## what the registry does well

Give the registry its due. It does two things nothing else does.

**It is the only place the serial number means anything.** A serial copied into a spreadsheet, a press release or a token is a string of characters. Inside the registry it is a unit with a project file, a verification report and an owner. The standard behind it gives the number weight, built project by project by people who cared whether a tonne was real.

**It stops double counting inside its walls.** A serial sits in one account at a time. Once retired, it cannot be retired again.

The walls are the limit. A registry cannot see another registry or a country's national inventory. When a host country and a buyer both count the same reduction, that is double claiming, and a serial number does not stop it. That is why the Paris Agreement's Article 6 rules lean on corresponding adjustments between countries rather than on any one database.

## why a registry is not a market

A market needs more than a record of ownership. It needs a venue, counterparties on both sides, a price most people can see, and a unit worth holding for some reason other than retiring it.

A registry was not built to be any of those. It records a deal struck somewhere else: a broker's call, a bilateral contract, an exchange listing. Most units enter at issuance and leave at retirement. The registry sees both ends. The middle, where money usually lives, happens off its books.

That is not a flaw in the people who run registries; it is the shape of the instrument. A unit designed to be retired once, by one buyer, against one claim, does not need a market. It needs a clerk, and registries are very good clerks.

For a company retiring units against an inventory, that is often enough. For anyone who wants the unit to keep moving, to pool it, hold it, or pay a place every season, the clerk is not the problem. The missing middle is.

## what a public ledger adds

### what does a registry do that a public ledger does not, and the reverse?

A **public ledger** is a shared record anyone can read, running open code anyone can call. It keeps a count too, but the rules sit in contracts and the history is in the open.

| | carbon credit registry | public ledger |
|---|---|---|
| who can check a balance | the account holder, plus whatever the registry publishes | anyone, at any time, at almost no cost |
| who can build on it | the registry and its approved partners | anyone, without asking |
| can one part be swapped | methodology, verifier, registry and claim come as one bound object | a pool, a payout or an interface can be replaced without the rest |
| do the rules travel with the unit | rules live in the registry's procedures | rules live in the contract and go wherever the unit goes |
| what it gives a serial number | meaning, under one standard | nothing, unless a standard says so |
| what it knows about the peatland | what the last verification said | nothing at all |

So a public ledger adds four things. **Anyone can verify** a balance, a transfer or a payout without a login. **Anyone can build on it** without a partnership agreement. **Parts can be swapped**, because the market, the payout and the record are separate pieces. **Rules travel with the unit**: a split of proceeds is written once and runs wherever the unit goes.

It does not add the peatland, and neither does a registry. No database keeps a bog wet. The count is about the place; the place is somewhere else. The words behind those four things get their own post: [composable, modular, open](/guide/composable-modular-and-open?from=guide).

## the tokenization chapter

### can a credit be tokenized?

Yes, and it has been tried in public. Toucan Protocol built a bridge that brought Verra credits onchain: a credit was retired on Verra's registry, and a token representing it was issued on a public ledger and pooled into a Base Carbon Tonne token. KlimaDAO used that pooled token as the reserve for its own. It was a real experiment, run in the open, in making a credit liquid. In May 2022 Verra stopped allowing retired credits to be turned into tokens, on the reasoning that retirement means the credit's benefit has been used, and said it would look at a way to immobilize credits that stay active in the registry instead. The lesson is not that anyone acted in bad faith. **A wrapper on a retired unit is still a retired unit.** The token moved; the thing it pointed at had already stopped. What a token can and cannot carry for a living place is its own post: [a token is not a forest](/guide/a-token-is-not-a-forest?from=guide).

## a levy is programmable money, written by committee

The Paris Agreement's new crediting mechanism, under Article 6.4, keeps a registry of its own, and its rules set aside a share of issued units for public purposes. Under those rules, 5% of issued units go to the Adaptation Fund, which pays for adaptation in developing countries. Another 2% are cancelled toward overall mitigation in global emissions, so that using the mechanism is meant to leave the atmosphere slightly better off rather than merely even. The registry carries dedicated accounts for both.

That is programmable money: a rule that rides with every unit and sends part of it to a public purpose, automatically. It is a good rule. It was also written by negotiators over several years of climate talks, it applies inside one registry, and changing it takes another round of decisions.

A public ledger lets the same kind of rule be written by whoever is building and checked by anyone. We think the credit world has already decided that money for the land should carry rules. The open question is who gets to write them.

## the ensurance ledger, stated plainly

Ensurance keeps its instruments on a public ledger. Here is what is on it.

- **Coins** ([general ensurance](https://ensurance.app/general?from=guide)) are currency, based on a living system through its agent. About half of them have a public pool today, and trading proceeds go to a payout recipient written into the coin's contract.
- **Certificates** ([specific ensurance](https://ensurance.app/specific?from=guide)) are a record of a hold on one named agent, one to one. They are not a credit, an offset or title.
- **Agents** are the addresses: one per living place or purpose, each with its own account.

Coins, certificates and agents are open contracts on a public ledger that anyone can read and build on. The volumes are small, a person still confirms each action an agent takes today, and the protocol is its own first user.

Here is what is not on it: the condition of the place. A coin based on a peatland does not make the peatland wet. No holder of a coin or certificate can call the peatland, take it or be paid out of it. Nothing is owed by the place, and nothing can be seized from it. The condition of the place is not on the ledger. It is in the place, and the work there is done by the people who keep it.

What the ledger can do is put money, in the open, on an address that points at that work. A serial number says: this tonne was counted here. An agent says: this place is here, and this is what has been paid toward it. The longer case for onchain money that pays for something alive is [crypto that does something](/guide/crypto-that-does-something?from=guide).

## keep the registry, move the money

Keep the registry for the serial number. If you need to retire a tonne against a claim, the registry is where that retirement means something, and it should stay that way. The plain account of how that market works is [what a carbon market actually is](/guide/what-a-carbon-market-actually-is?from=guide).

Put the money on something that can compose. Paying a living place season after season takes money that can circulate, pool and carry its own rules, on a ledger others can build on.

- If you retire units for a company: [see where ensurance fits for corporate teams](/solutions/corporations?from=guide&topic=money-that-acts-like-nature).
- If you run an onchain group: [see where ensurance fits for onchain groups](/solutions/onchain-groups?from=guide&topic=money-that-acts-like-nature).
- If you place capital: [see where ensurance fits for capital providers](/solutions/capital-providers?from=guide&topic=money-that-acts-like-nature).

Or start small: [look at the coins live today](https://ensurance.app/general?from=guide), and if you want to talk it through, [reach us here](/contact?from=guide&topic=money-that-acts-like-nature).

The bog stays wet or it does not. The registry counts, the ledger moves, and the work that keeps the place alive happens on the ground. Our bet is that the money for that work should move as freely as the water does.

## sources

[UNFCCC, Article 6.4 Supervisory Body concept note](https://www.unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/a64-sb001-aa-a04.pdf) — the 5% share of proceeds for the Adaptation Fund and the 2% cancellation for overall mitigation in global emissions; the mechanism registry's accounts

[Carbon Market Institute, Article 6.4 factsheet](https://carbonmarketinstitute.org/app/uploads/2024/12/Article-6.4-Factsheet.pdf) — summary of the Article 6.4 levy

[S&P Global Commodity Insights, May 2022](https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/energy-transition/052522-as-verra-halts-tokenization-of-carbon-credits-toucan-vows-to-keep-web3-ethos-alive) — Verra halts tokenization of retired credits; immobilization proposed as an alternative

[CarbonPlan, Toucan crypto offsets](https://carbonplan.org/research/toucan-crypto-offsets) — how the Toucan bridge and the Base Carbon Tonne pool worked

[Carbon Offset Guide, offset registries](https://archive.offsetguide.org/?p=1218) — serial numbers tracked from issuance through transfer to retirement

## the series

[every credit is trying to become money](/guide/every-credit-is-trying-to-become-money?from=guide) — the pillar

[a credit judged as money](/guide/a-credit-judged-as-money?from=guide) — the scorecard

[a registry is not a market](/guide/a-registry-is-not-a-market?from=guide) — this post

[money that acts like nature](/guide/money-that-acts-like-nature?from=guide)

[composable, modular, open](/guide/composable-modular-and-open?from=guide)

[pay the land, pay the people](/guide/pay-the-land-pay-the-people?from=guide) — the flag