institutional finance is going onchain—here's what they're missing

JPMorgan processes $3 billion per day on Base L2. Stripe is launching a payments-focused blockchain with Visa, Deutsche Bank, and Anthropic as design partners. BlackRock has crossed $1 billion in tokenized assets. Swiss Re's reinsurance consortium is automating contracts onchain.

The most sophisticated financial infrastructure in history is being built right now—not in London or New York, but on Ethereum and its L2s.

These institutions built this infrastructure for payments, settlement, and tokenization. What they're about to discover: the same rails are perfectly suited for nature-linked instruments. They came for one thing. They're going to get something more.

the infrastructure buildout

The past 18 months have seen an institutional stampede toward onchain infrastructure:

reinsurance goes onchain

Perhaps more telling: the reinsurance industry—which literally prices risk for a living—is moving fastest:

These are not experiments. JPMorgan's $3B daily volume on Base is real institutional flow. Nayms is writing real catastrophe exposure. BlackRock's BUIDL is real allocation.

The rails are being built. The question is what instruments will flow through them.

the two-fer: solving problems they didn't know they had

Here's what makes this interesting.

These institutions went onchain to solve specific problems: faster settlement, cheaper cross-border payments, tokenized asset distribution, programmable compliance. Those problems are being solved.

But once you're onchain, you get access to something else: an entire ecosystem of instruments that can address problems you weren't even targeting.

Every one of these institutions serves customers with significant—and largely unmanaged—nature exposure. The same rails built for payments can carry instruments that fund the ecosystems their customers depend on.

stripe's merchants—and stripe climate

Stripe processes payments for millions of businesses. Those businesses have supply chains. Those supply chains depend on nature.

• A coffee marketplace depends on stable rainfall in producing regions
• A seafood distributor depends on healthy fisheries
• A cosmetics brand depends on ingredient ecosystems
• A construction platform depends on lumber supply and water availability

Stripe already understands this. Stripe Climate lets businesses fund high-durability carbon removal at checkout—contributing a percentage of revenue to projects like direct air capture, enhanced weathering, and ocean alkalinity enhancement through Frontier, Stripe's advance market commitment to buy $1B+ in permanent carbon removal by 2030.

But carbon is just one of 19 ecosystem services. What about water filtration? Pollination? Flood attenuation? Soil health? These services don't have their own "Stripe Climate" yet—but they could.

The opportunity: Expand Stripe Climate from carbon-only to full ecosystem services. Ensurance instruments cover all 19 services across 15 ecosystem types—carbon included, but not carbon-only. The same checkout integration, but funding the complete portfolio of natural capital that supply chains depend on.

klarna + milkywire—already halfway there

Klarna is launching KlarnaUSD on Stripe's Tempo chain. But Klarna already has deep infrastructure for nature funding through their partnership with Milkywire.

The existing relationship:

• Klarna invested in Milkywire in 2022 as a strategic partner
• Milkywire powers Klarna's consumer-facing climate initiatives—carbon footprint tracking and donations to climate projects at checkout
• Klarna co-founded and funds Milkywire's Climate Transformation Fund, directing capital to high-impact climate and nature restoration projects

This is the golden thread. Milkywire already channels consumer fintech capital into nature protection. Klarna is moving to blockchain rails for stablecoin payments. What's missing: instruments that provide perpetual protection rather than one-time donations or offset purchases.

The opportunity: Ensurance complements what Klarna and Milkywire already do. Instead of (or in addition to) one-time climate donations, shoppers could fund ensurance certificates that generate ongoing proceeds for ecosystem stewardship. The donation becomes an investment. The impact compounds.

jpmorgan's institutional clients

JPMorgan's Kinexys network serves institutional investors, asset managers, and corporations. These entities:

• Hold portfolios exposed to climate and nature transition risk
• Face TNFD disclosure requirements (or will soon)
• Need nature-positive allocation options for ESG mandates
• Want diversification beyond traditional asset classes

They have the infrastructure to hold tokenized assets. They have the compliance frameworks to handle new instruments. What they lack are instruments worth holding.

The opportunity: Ensurance certificates as a new allocation category—real natural assets, verifiable outcomes, yield-bearing, tradable via the same rails as JPMD.

blackrock's allocators

BlackRock manages $10+ trillion. Their BUIDL tokenized fund is just the beginning. The asset allocators, RIAs, and institutional investors in BlackRock's orbit are looking for:

• Real-world asset (RWA) exposure beyond real estate and treasuries
• Nature-positive investments that aren't just offset theater
• Instruments that provide both impact and return

The opportunity: Ensurance as a RWA category alongside tokenized treasuries and real estate—with the added benefit of actually protecting something.

reinsurers and their insureds

Reinsurance is the most explicit case. These companies literally model nature risk:

• Swiss Re's Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Index quantifies economic dependency on nature
• Munich Re tracks nat-cat losses that increasingly correlate with ecosystem degradation
• Nayms is already tokenizing catastrophe exposure on Base

Reinsurers understand that proactive risk reduction is cheaper than reactive claims payment. They've just lacked instruments to invest in prevention at scale.

The opportunity: Ensurance syndicates that let insurers and reinsurers fund the ecological buffers—wetlands, forests, watersheds—that reduce their actual loss exposure.

what ensurance provides

The infrastructure being built by Stripe, JPMorgan, and BlackRock is EVM-native. So is ensurance.

instruments that fit the rails

These instruments are native to Ethereum and its L2s. They can flow through JPMD rails. They can settle in KlarnaUSD. They can sit alongside BUIDL in institutional portfolios.

the mechanism advantage

Unlike traditional conservation funding (grants, donations, one-time easements), ensurance creates continuous funding flows:

1. Trading activity on coins generates protocol proceeds
2. Certificate holdings generate yield from protocol rewards
3. Proceeds route to natural asset stewardship automatically
4. Verification happens through continuous MRV (measurement, reporting, verification)

This is not "donate and hope." This is financial infrastructure for nature.

concrete use cases

use case 1: stripe climate → stripe nature

The setup: Stripe Climate already lets merchants fund carbon removal at checkout. A coffee marketplace on Stripe processes $10M monthly and contributes 1% to Stripe Climate. Their suppliers source from watersheds in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Sumatra.

The expansion:

• Extend checkout contribution from carbon-only to full ecosystem services
• 0.5% continues to carbon removal via Frontier; 0.5% routes to ensurance certificates tied to source watersheds
• Certificates are held in a merchant agent (ERC-721 + TBA)
• Agent accumulates value, receives protocol proceeds, funds ongoing watershed stewardship
• Merchant gets verified impact data covering carbon and water and biodiversity

The outcome: Same checkout flow, broader impact. The coffee marketplace now funds the complete ecosystem its supply chain depends on—not just the carbon slice.

use case 2: klarna + milkywire ensurance integration

The setup: Klarna shoppers already see carbon footprint data and can donate to climate projects via Milkywire. Klarna is launching KlarnaUSD on Tempo. Milkywire already funds nature restoration.

The integration:

• At checkout, shoppers can choose to "ensurance" a cause—converting donation to investment
• Funds route to ensurance certificates tied to Milkywire's Climate Transformation Fund priorities
• Certificates held in a Milkywire agent that aggregates shopper contributions
• Agent generates perpetual proceeds from protocol activity, compounding impact over time
• Shoppers get verifiable, tradable proof of their contribution (not just a receipt)

The outcome: One-time donations become perpetual funding. The $5 checkout contribution doesn't disappear—it generates ongoing proceeds for nature protection. Klarna shoppers become ensurers, not just donors.

use case 3: jpmorgan nature allocation

The setup: An institutional investor with $500M AUM needs nature-positive allocation for their ESG mandate. They already hold tokenized treasuries via BUIDL.

The mechanism:

• Allocate 2% ($10M) to ensurance certificates across priority ecosystems
• Certificates held in institutional custody, tradable via same rails as other tokenized assets
• Yield accrues from protocol rewards; value tracks underlying natural asset health
• TNFD-ready reporting on dependencies and impacts

The outcome: Nature exposure that's liquid, verifiable, and yield-bearing—not locked in illiquid land trusts or questionable offset registries.

use case 4: reinsurer syndicate participation

The setup: A P&C reinsurer wants to reduce wildfire exposure in their California book. Current strategy: rate increases and market exit.

The mechanism:

• Contribute $5M to an ensurance syndicate focused on fuel reduction in WUI zones
• Syndicate funds forest health projects in priority areas—prioritized by the reinsurer's own exposure models
• MRV documents treatment outcomes; ecological data informs future underwriting
• Loss reduction quantifiable against control areas

The outcome: Proactive risk mitigation that actually reduces losses, not just redistributes them. The insurer who funds fuel reduction pays fewer claims.

use case 5: corporate treasury hedge

The setup: A food & beverage company depends on pollinators for 40% of their ingredient inputs. Their CFO just saw the Swiss Re BES analysis showing pollinator decline as high-magnitude risk.

The mechanism:

• Treasury allocates $2M to $ENSURE and pollination-focused certificates
• Holdings serve as both impact investment and operational hedge
• If pollination services decline, ensurance mechanisms route more funding to restoration
• Company demonstrates tangible action, not just disclosure

The outcome: Aligned incentives—the company's financial position and nature's health move in the same direction.

why now

Three forces are converging:

1. Infrastructure maturity

The rails are no longer speculative. JPMorgan's $3B/day proves institutional throughput. Stripe's design partners (Visa, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered) signal network effects. BlackRock's multi-chain deployment shows commitment.

2. Regulatory pressure

TNFD disclosure is moving from voluntary to expected. EU Taxonomy requires nature impact assessment. CSRD mandates sustainability reporting. Companies need instruments that demonstrate action, not just assessment.

3. Existing momentum

Stripe Climate and Klarna/Milkywire prove that checkout-integrated nature funding works. Consumers will contribute. Merchants will participate. The question is whether those contributions fund one-time offsets—or perpetual protection.

what this means

The institutions building onchain infrastructure are not charities. They're building rails because they see flow—$3 billion a day and growing. What flows through those rails is still up for grabs.

Right now, it's tokenized treasuries, stablecoins, and early RWA experiments. Tomorrow, it could include natural capital instruments that:

• Trade on the same rails as BUIDL
• Settle in the same stablecoins as cross-border payments
• Extend Stripe Climate to all 19 ecosystem services
• Convert Klarna donations into perpetual ensurance
• Provide the same auditability that institutional compliance requires
• Actually protect something

They came for payments. They'll discover nature finance was waiting for them.

For institutional inquiries:

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