Regen Network Launches Bridge to Polygon With Toucan Protocol

Polygon Labs

April 10, 2023

Regen Network, a public chain built with Cosmos SDK, launched a bridge to the Polygon network in partnership with Toucan in a major milestone toward a thriving, multichain regenerative finance ecosystem.

The two-way bridge allows for the issuance, tokenization, and retirement of Toucan’s tokenized carbon credit (TCO2) assets on Regen Network and establishes Nature Carbon Tonne (NCT) as the first digital carbon token in the Cosmos ecosystem. Users with NCT balances on the Polygon network can use the bridge to transfer NCT-eligible TCO2s to Regen Network and deposit them in on-chain carbon pools within the Osmosis decentralized exchange.

“The partnership between Toucan and Regen Network is pivotal for the success of ReFi,” Gregory Landua, CEO and co-founder of Regen Network. This “is the first step to open up the flow of Web3-native carbon credits originated on Regen Network into the Polygon and Celo ReFi communities, while bringing carbon liquidity into the growing Cosmos economy.”

Bridging a Toucan TCO2 token from Polygon to Regen Network burns the credits on the Polygon blockchain and mints new carbon credits on Regen Network, to ensure that there is no double counting. The new carbon credits retain key credit metadata, such as the credit's country of origin, vintage or methodology. When retired, the carbon credits are permanently taken out of circulation and removed from an account balance. They can still be tracked, but not traded anymore.

Regen Network, Toucan, and Moss.Earth launched the NCT standard in February 2022 to bring nature-based carbon credits to blockchain markets. The NCT standard addresses several core challenges of the legacy carbon market including transparency, accountability, and fragmentation, critical to addressing climate accounting at scale.

NCT represents carbon tokens from nature-based projects. This fungible carbon reference token is linked to real-world carbon credits that have been tokenized, and it can be utilized in a wide variety of Web3 protocols, in DeFi applications, metaverse projects, gamified climate action, automated offsetting, and more. On the Polygon network, NCT can be traded via two pools on Sushiswap: $NCT-$USDC and $NCT-$KLIMA

Return Protocol uses NCT for carbon offsetting and aligning incentives between individuals and climate projects to enable effortless climate action. KlimaDAO supports NCT, along with a number of other pooled carbon tokens representing a variety of carbon offset types, throughout its Web3-powered sustainability toolset. Menthol Protocol enables anyone to be a climate leader and jumpstart a regenerative finance ecosystem for their favorite dApps, plot of land in the metaverse or physical events.

One of the biggest green milestones for the Polygon network in 2022 was the Merge. Ethereum’s transition to the proof of stake (PoS) consensus wiped out 60,000 tonnes of Polygon’s carbon footprint, making the already carbon neutral network even more sustainable and on the path to carbon negative as was expressed in our green manifesto.

“With this positive step forward for interoperability, we expect an increase in use of both NCT and Regen Network native credits within current use case frameworks, as well as new ones that could surprise us,” said Stefan Renton, sustainability manager at Polygon Labs. “Innovation and collaboration are pillars of the industry and it’s likely that this increase in access will flourish into further diversity of on-chain environmental assets.”

Check out the guides for Polygon-to-Regen and Regen-to-Polygon bridging to get started. Tune into the Polygon Labs Blog and social channels to stay up to date on the latest from the Polygon ecosystem.

Together, we can build an equitable future for all through the mass adoption of Web3!

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