The $1 trillion annual conservation funding gap won't be closed by actors who care about nature.
It will be closed by actors who care about returns.
That sounds cynical until you understand the mechanism. Then it sounds like the only thing that could actually work.
what ensurance protects
Natural capital: the stocks and flows from natural assets.
Stocks are the assets themselves—forests, wetlands, watersheds, coral reefs, species populations. Flows are what those assets produce—clean water, pollination, flood control, climate regulation, habitat. The 24 ecosystem services that underpin all economic activity.
Ensurance creates instruments—coins and certificates—that let any actor express what they value and fund its protection. Markets for what matters.
the problem with caring
Caring matters. It's essential. But caring alone doesn't scale.
Philanthropy moves billions. Conservation needs trillions. Impact investors may say they want impact, but what they actually need are risk-adjusted market-rate returns with the additional requirement of impact. We can't fault them—that's the fiduciary reality. But let's be honest about it.
The actors with capital to close the gap are motivated by returns, risk reduction, and portfolio performance. Asking them to sacrifice returns for nature is asking them to be different people.
What if we stopped asking?
The refi thesis: don't change incentives. Redirect them.
speculation as recognition
Speculation enables price discovery—but not in the sense of "pricing to sell."
Price discovery as recognition. Surfacing what has value but whose value was invisible. Making it seen. Markets currently price most ecosystem services near zero—not because they're worthless, but because no instrument existed to express their worth.
This is different from commodification. We're not putting a price tag on nature's intrinsic value. We're creating instruments that make nature's existing value legible to markets that couldn't see it before. The instrumental serves the intrinsic.
three ways to speculate
Certificates: Issued on ecosystem service value, priced on cost. The natural cap rate spread is yours. As markets recognize ESV, prices converge toward face value.
Coins: Pure market sentiment on what matters. Fair launch (99% LP), bonding curve discovery, shared liquidity, $ENSURE as bridge. Early positioning in underrecognized value captures the repricing.
LP: Yield from activity regardless of direction. More trading = more yield. Protocol fees flow through proceeds to stewards.
why your motivation is irrelevant
| Your Activity | Your Motivation | Outcome for Nature |
|---|---|---|
| Buy certificate | Capture spread | Capital funds protection |
| Flip coins | Chase momentum | Trading fees flow to stewards |
| Provide LP | Farm yield | Pool activity funds proceeds |
| Exchange arb | Exploit price gaps | Liquidity maintained |
The outcome is invariant to intent. You can be a degen, a quant, an AI agent optimizing for millisecond arbitrage—it doesn't matter. The architecture converts whatever motivation you have into protection.
the anchor
Every speculation mechanism sits on the same foundation: natural assets and the actors and agents who care for them.
Hard to argue with infinite NAV. The economy depends 100% on ecosystem services. That dependency creates a floor—not an artificial peg, but a functional necessity.
relational, not absolute
Value is relational. What matters to you may not matter to me, and vice versa. Ensurance doesn't impose a single hierarchy of worth. It creates a space where any actor—person, organization, AI, collective—can express their values through capital allocation.
Markets for what matters. Plural. Dynamic. Like nature itself.
instruments, not substitutes
These are instruments. Tools. They can never take the place of what they support.
We are not financializing nature; we are naturalizing finance. The instrumental layer serves intrinsic value. Financial mechanisms protect what matters—they don't define what matters.
Conservation has asked actors to care more. It hasn't worked at scale.
Ensurance asks actors to speculate better. The mechanism converts self-interest into stewardship.
→ Ensurance coins — price discovery on what matters
→ Ensurance certificates — ESV arbitrage through natural cap rate
→ Arbitrage abundance — how closing the gap creates more