Why do tokenised credits sometimes trade at a different price?

Tokenised credits are bridged into on-chain carbon pools like BCT or NCT, which set a pool floor price. Generic, older, or lower-quality vintages often clear near that floor, while premium nature-based or recent vintages can trade above it, creating a price gap versus the OTC spot.

What is the difference between retiring on a registry and retiring on-chain?

Registry retirement permanently cancels the credit in the issuing registry such as Verra. On-chain retirement burns a tokenised version (for example via Toucan) and records the retirement on a public blockchain, which gives an immutable, instantly verifiable proof but adds bridge, pool, and gas costs.

Does this tool fetch live prices?

No. You enter the current OTC price yourself from your broker or a market data source. The tool then applies methodology and vintage multipliers and adds your pool premium and gas estimate so you can model the comparison without any live API.

What is a carbon pool premium?

When credits are deposited into a pool token you may pay a small premium or fee over the underlying credit price for the liquidity and standardisation the pool provides. Typical premiums range from a few percent to around ten percent depending on the pool and credit quality.

Are older vintages worth less?

Generally yes. Buyers and pools often discount pre-2018 vintages because methodologies and additionality scrutiny have tightened. The tool applies a vintage discount so older credits show a lower expected clearing price than recent issuances.

ReFi Tokenised Carbon Credit Equivalence Calculator

ReFi (regenerative finance) bridges voluntary carbon credits onto public blockchains so they can be retired transparently and used in on-chain climate applications. But the economics of buying and retiring a tokenised credit differ from a traditional registry retirement. This calculator estimates the expected clearing price for your credit, the cost of an on-chain retirement, and the total differential versus retiring directly on the registry.

How it works

The expected price applies two multipliers to your entered OTC base price:

expected price = OTC base × methodology multiplier × vintage factor
registry total = expected price × tonnes
tokenised total = (expected price × (1 + pool premium)) × tonnes + gas
differential   = tokenised total − registry total

Nature-based and recent-vintage credits carry higher methodology multipliers because they command quality premiums; older vintages get a discount factor. The pool premium models the spread you pay to acquire a standardised pool token, and the gas estimate covers the bridge and retirement transactions.

Example and notes

Suppose you hold 100 tonnes of a 2022 Gold Standard cookstove credit with an OTC base of 8 per tonne, a 4 percent pool premium, and a 6 gas estimate. The registry route costs roughly the expected price times 100, while the tokenised route adds the pool premium across all tonnes plus the flat gas. For small lots the gas is the dominant overhead; for large lots the pool premium dominates. Always confirm that the credits you intend to bridge are eligible for the pool you are targeting — pools enforce gateway criteria on methodology and vintage, and ineligible credits cannot be deposited.