The Most Important Public Good: Nature

Society and the Economy are 100% dependent on Nature. The benefits nature provides are the greatest Public Goods: Clean Air & Water, Climate Stability, Pollination, Soil, Biodiversity, Recreation, Beauty and much much more. These ecological benefits can be protected and restored using real world assets (RWA).

The BASIN Protocol makes Nature investable onchain.

A Trillion Dollar Problem

Nature and biodiversity are under threat. Our very well being is being destroyed before our eyes: according to prominent reports, nature needs $1T per year of funding to stabilize the climate, bolster biodiversity, and prevent mass extinctions.

$1T problems need $1T solutions

Every year over $1T of investment real estate changes hand. Crypto is well over a $2.4T market cap today today. DeFi is capable of reaching these numbers.

Funding Critical Infrastructure

Biodiversity and Ecosystems are critical infrastructure. Government and civil society are not acting fast enough and are facing coordination failure to protect and restore this infrastructure. BASIN makes natural infrastructure investable, today.

Enter: RWA x Natural Capital x web3

The BASIN Protocol

The BASIN Protocol bridges this funding gap using Natural Capital Valuation, Real World Assets (RWA), and web3. The protocol reduces risk and increases resilience, ensuring well-being and regenerative wealth.

Public Goods

The benefits nature provides are public goods. These benefits are also called natural capital stocks and flows.

Stocks are the ecosystems like forests, wetlands, rivers, grasslands etc. BASIN is based on 14 primary ecosystems.

Flows are the benefits nature provides from the ecosystems. BASIN is based on 18 Core Benefits of Natural Capital.

Both stocks and flows can be valued in $’s using real asset valuation for the stocks and ecosystem service valuation for the flows. Our RealValue of Natural Capital Framework does this for any parcel of land, anywhere in the world.

Real World Assets (RWA)

Despite its flaws, the legal system gives us tools to protect and restore nature. The stocks and flows of natural capital can be pinpointed to specific polygons on the globe (properties) and real property law provides the framework to scale the stewardship of ecosystems and the services they provide. RWA’s are key to achieving 30x30 and maybe even reaching Half-Earth.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS)

The BASIN Protocol focuses on Nature-based Solutions that RWA’s facilitate. Examples include but are not limited to: wildlife corridors, rewilding, recommoning, natural carbon sinks, high biodiversity areas, beaver analogues, underground fungal and mycelia networks, aquifer recharge, urban heat reduction, and many other green-infrastructure projects that increase biodiversity, water supply and quality, stops further land degradation and lowers flood and erosion risk. The protocol works in urban, rural, and remote locales.

Ecological Ensurance

Insurance is reactive, Ensurance is proactive. Ecological Ensurance calculates the financial feasibility of and offers paths to protect ecosystems in perpetuity. As critical ecosystem infrastructure (Ecological Polygons) are identified, we value the natural capital and put it onchain. On average we can Ensure the permanent protection of ecosystems for a cost that is less than 10% of its RealValue. Certificates of Ensurance are issued to convert this value to real world, on the ground, impact.

web3 IRL

From day one BASIN was built by a multidisciplinary team to create transdisciplinary results that are deployable, repeatable and scalable. As a member run polycentric organization, web3 provides the tools and resources for implementation and execution.

Place, Purpose, People

In the BASIN Protocol dApp, any place, purpose, or person can have a .BASIN account. Each .BASIN account is a member in the protocol. BASIN accounts can be managed individually or collectively and can hold almost any type of value. This value is stored and streamed through the protocol to fund on the ground land (RWA) projects that regenerate and protect ecosystems and species, and the benefits nature provides in perpetuity.

Protocol Owned Assets

The BASIN Protocol is designed to steward natural capital in perpetuity and act as Nature’s Balance Sheet to fund Ecological Institutions. Species, Rivers, Watersheds, Mountains, Bioregions, Ecosystems etc, even Trees can all have their own .BASIN account (wallet) with the assets collectively managed by the protocol and stewarded by people. The “properties”, via Ecological Ensurance, are put Entrust of the Protocol to ensure the stocks and flows of natural capital for future generations.

Semi Fungible Crosschain

BASIN is pushing the onchain boundaries of real world uses cases of ERC-721, ERC-6551, ERC-1155 and of course ERC-20. BASIN is built on crosschain EVM with current deployments on Ethereum, Polygon, and Zora. Base, Celo, Avalanche and others are right around the corner. We are also working on connection to the Interchain (IBC), specifically for ecocredits on the Regen Ledger.

Interoperable Composability

BASIN incorporates several open source projects and is itself open for others to build on. We are grateful for the teams and tech of Tokenbound / Future Primitive, 0xSplits, Punk Domains, ENS Domains, Sablier, CougarDAO, Fabrica, Charged Particles, Hypercerts, Aave, Sudoswap, Uniswap, and 4626 Alliance.

Proof of Impact (MRV)

In addition to financial, economic, and social value, each .BASIN account can also hold ecological value and proof of impact and MRV certificates. We have identified over 100 ecological and well being indicators for ecosystem services, biodiversity and human health which can all be tied directly to Ecological Polygons and the corresponding RealValue.

Past Gitcoin Grants Rounds

We have been a Gitcoin grantee on and off since GR13. The Gitcoin platform and community has been there for us when others weren’t and is, frankly, a reason we are still here pushing this forward.

People measure success by different metrics. In our opinion, in this new and emerging space of climate, nature, biodiversity, impact and web3 you have to throw as many things at the wall as possible. We are not afraid to try something, usually in public, see how it goes, learn, and iterate.

What was done with the funds from past rounds:

• Researched and documented the 50+ year history of Ecological Economics and more recent developments in Ecosystem Accounting and Natural Capital Valuation. We also did a deep dive on “Value”, reviewing over 300 types of value. The results are in the RealValue of Nature Capital Framework with 1,000’s of pages of supporting material in the Appendix.
• Finalized the Core Benefits of Natural Capital which led to the development RealValue.
• Evaluated dozens of land cover classification and ecosystem typologies to establish the 14 ecosystem types we use in the BASIN Protocol.
• Developed the Ecological Ensurance financial model for Natural Capital.
• Launched our .BASIN ERC-721 contract which is nearing 800 .basin accounts.
• Experimented with Charged Particles as a concept for Nature’s Balance Sheet.
• Participated in CougarDAO which now owns a farm in CO and land in AZ and leases a vacation rental in TN all onchain. Cougar utilizes Fabrica for land/property NFT and trust services and Sablier for payment streaming.
• Implementation and testing of ERC-6551 Tokenbound Accounts for the .BASIN contract.
• Launched several ERC-1155 contracts on Polygon and Zora. All of our 1155 are Certificates of Ensurance and are tied to specific .basin accounts.
• Extensive testing and use of 0xSplits, Sablier, Superfluid, Drips and other protocols to send, split, and stream value.
• Developed a relationship with the Aspen Valley Land Trust for potential pilot projects and their use of blockchain.
• Ran the basin.live interview series for past Gitcoin Rounds featuring other grantees.
• Published the RWA x ReFi Report (in conjunction with and with generous support from the Climate Collective)
• Participated in and led several ReFi DAO Founder Circles including the RWA Circle.
• Talked to and pitched numerous VC’s to eventually conclude that the VC model does not and probably will not work for nature and biodiversity. This is why other innovative funding mechanisms like Gitcoin are needed.
• Customer development and deep research re “Who Pays” for ecosystem services, why and when. Will be publishing results in 2024.
• Research and exploration of launching the BASIN Natural Asset Company (NAC) on the NYSE. NAC’s have since been postponed due to push back from the oil and gas lobby.
• Minted test ERC-20 contracts and exploring the use of meme coins to protect nature.
• Extensive research and development of Ecological Indicators for MRV of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and well-being. Results to be published in 2024.
• Weekly searching and evaluation of well over 1,000 properties for inclusion in the BASIN Binder for the writing of Ecological ENSURANCE policies.
• Reviewed and evaluated 100’s of cities / regions and industries for implementation of Ecological Ensurance. Narrowed city list can be found here. Industry list will be published in 2024.
• Launched confluence.basin.global, a marketplace for Certificates of Ensurance.
• Revamped / rewrote docs.basin.global (see links throughout). Our current and primary focus is practical implementation of all the above.

Team and Contact

BASIN has been supported by over 2,000 individuals as well as received generous support from Gitcoin, Climate Collective, Regen Network, Giveth, and Better Giving (Angel Protocol). Our members and founding team include PhD’s, Masters, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs, ecologists, biologists, carbon experts, filmmakers, landscape architects, writers, storytellers, artists, and people like you. For an invite to our Slack, for specific questions, or to become a BASIN Member please reach out to Thomas Morgan aka TMO (@tmoindusties). You can also subscribe to BASIN Dispatches for regular updates.

Selected Media

The Core Benefits of Natural Capital

The RealValue of Natural Capital

Ecological Ensurance

Ensurance Premium Rate Card

RealValue GAP

The value gap between the natural capital value in relation to the real asset value/cost.

Thanks for being here. We appreciate your support.