Does Gold Standard support cryptocurrency in carbon markets?

Gold Standard supports technology innovation in carbon markets to help increase access and transparency in carbon trading and accounting and ultimately to increase climate action companies can take within and beyond their corporate value chains. We have shared some of our thinking about high-value use cases of digital ledger technologies through our work with the Climate Ledger Initiative, and with more efforts to come in our open collaboration to accelerate climate action through digitization with Climate Check and the IOTA Foundation.  

We are aware of reports of increasing interest among crypto actors, some activity of which appears speculative in nature. Gold Standard does not participate in market activities where cryptocurrency is generated, minted, or otherwise facilitated by third parties that rely on or aim to represent Gold Standard carbon credits. We want to stress that persons or organizations who purchase or otherwise engage in these activities do so at their own risk.

We want to remind all stakeholders of the following clauses associated with the Registry Terms of Use:

9.2    The Account Holder acknowledges and agrees that if the Account Holder retires Units in The Gold Standard Registry:

1.  the Account Holder is retiring such Units permanently;
2.  neither the Account Holder nor any third party has any further rights to take the benefit of such Units nor the underlying Environmental Benefits corresponding to such Units; and 
3. the Account Holder will procure that all relevant third parties enter into such agreements as are necessary to ensure that neither the Account Holder nor any third parties have any further rights to take the benefit of such Units nor the underlying Environmental Benefits corresponding to such Units.

We welcome innovation to continuously increase environmental integrity and transparency in carbon markets, yet we reinforce the utmost need to do so with transparency and credibility.