Behind the scenes, JPMorgan’s blockchain arm is working on a radical idea: converting carbon offsets into digital assets. The move could bring Wall Street-level efficiency to a market still burdened by manual processes and unreliable record-keeping.
On July 2nd, Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan’s blockchain unit, Kinexys, is partnering with S&P Global Commodity Insights, EcoRegistry, and the International Carbon Registry to pilot a tokenization system for carbon credits.
The trial converts registry-held carbon credits into blockchain tokens, testing whether distributed ledgers can clean up the market’s paper trail. The goal is to eliminate double-counting and fraud, long-standing issues that have plagued carbon trading.
The initiative comes as JPMorgan deepens its presence in the voluntary carbon market, where verification gaps and a lack of transparency have hindered growth. If successful, the pilot could inject accountability and scalability into a market projected to exceed $2 trillion by 2030.
Betting big on blockchain for carbon credits
JPMorgan’s carbon credit tokenization pilot is part of a broader strategy to position the bank as a key player in the evolving climate finance space.
The voluntary carbon market, while promising, has been held back by inconsistent standards, opaque pricing, and persistent concerns over credit legitimacy. Kinexys aims to address these challenges directly, using blockchain to offer institutional investors a more transparent and verifiable method of trading emissions offsets.
The bank’s recent actions reflect its long-term commitment. Just weeks before announcing the Kinexys pilot, JPMorgan signed a 13-year deal with Canadian carbon capture firm CO₂80, securing 450,000 metric tons of CO₂ removal at under $200 per ton.
The agreement, which benefits from U.S. tax incentives, shows JPMorgan’s willingness to take long-duration positions in carbon removal projects—a sharp contrast to the speculative, short-term trading that has defined much of the market.
Now, with tokenization, JPMorgan is targeting the infrastructure side of carbon markets, potentially enabling companies to integrate offsets into their sustainability strategies without the usual administrative friction.
Blockchain’s role here is not hypothetical. In May, Kinexys successfully demonstrated a separate test: a cross-chain settlement of tokenized U.S. Treasuries in collaboration with Ondo Finance and Chainlink.
That trial demonstrated that JPMorgan’s blockchain infrastructure can handle institutional-grade transactions across private and public chains. The same architecture could now be applied to carbon credits, ensuring each tokenized offset has a clear, auditable history—a critical feature for buyers wary of greenwashing.
