Concept
The idea behind Climatecoin emerged in 2017, aiming to merge blockchain technology with climate action. The project introduced the CLIMATECOIN token (CO2), a cryptocurrency based on Ethereum. Through the sale of this token, funds were raised to invest in companies actively combating climate change.
Climatecoin’s investment strategy included:
- Acquiring already profitable companies,
- Making seed investments in early-stage startups,
- Creating its own companies or projects,
- Purchasing solutions from external organizations to integrate into its foundation’s initiatives.
Beyond financing, the project also intended to provide investment and business consulting to ensure that environmentally friendly products became more economically viable.
Companies receiving investment were expected to distribute dividends to token holders. Additionally, as these businesses succeeded, the value of the CLIMATECOIN token itself was expected to rise. In the future, it was planned to back each Climatecoin token with a carbon unit as collateral.
Following the ICO in 2018, the company aimed to identify and invest in promising climate-focused businesses. However, there is currently no available information confirming actual investments made. The official Climatecoin website now presents an updated Whitepaper and Light Paper documents. Further details are available on their official website and in the Climatecoin Whitepaper Presentation. The only confirmed agreement before the ICO was with Carbon Trade Exchange (CTX) – GEM to establish the first peer-to-peer decentralized platform for carbon credit trading.
Web3 Funding Model
In 2017, Climatecoin conducted an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in two stages. A pre-sale ran for seven days, exclusively for contributors investing more than 100 ETH, with a hard cap set at 100,000 ETH. This was followed by a crowdsale lasting 30 days. The project initially planned to issue 500,000,000 CO2 tokens.
From the project’s whitepaper (February 2018), the planned token distribution was as follows:
- Team: 20%
- Crowdsale: 51%
- Reserve: 29%
The reserve was to be stored in a multi-signature wallet and released in a controlled manner to support growth when needed. This portion of the funds was to remain locked for at least four quarters (12 months) and could either be re-locked or burned if deemed unnecessary. In the long term, 80% of all tokens were meant to be distributed to the public, ensuring sustainable growth for both Climatecoin and the CO2 token.
The exact amount of funds raised through the ICO remains unknown. As of now, 19,507,398 CO2 tokens remain in circulation, with 741 token holders. Further details can be found on Etherscan: Climatecoin on Etherscan. Currently, CO2 tokens are not actively traded on exchanges.
Additionally, in 2019, Climatecoin secured investment from Palcapital. More information is available on Crunchbase: Climatecoin on Crunchbase.
Team
According to the Climatecoin whitepaper, the team in 2018 included:
At the time of writing this article, according to the updated whitepaper, the team includes:
Conclusions
In 2017, Climatecoin emerged as one of the first projects to integrate blockchain technology with climate finance. Its primary objective was business-driven—discovering high-potential projects, providing them with financial and strategic support, and in return, generating dividends and increasing the value of its assets, which would be shared with investors. Furthermore, the project aimed to collateralize its tokens with carbon credits, linking their value directly to real-world environmental impact.
In 2021–2022, this idea evolved into two distinct types of projects: those directly backing tokens with carbon assets, like Moss, and those positioning tokens as investment instruments, like KlimaDAO.
