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1. Introduction

Pure Sky DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization building a transparent, community-governed carbon credit registry. Our mission is to align incentives for project developers, buyers, and validators to create a high-integrity, blockchain-native carbon market.

The Pure Sky platform enables:

  • Project registration and methodology approvals

  • Credit issuance, trading, and retirement

  • Community governance through token voting

  • Validator rewards via staking and node operation

Pure Sky Process

Project developers must become a Pure Sky member to open an account on the Pure Sky registry. Before project submission, project developers should:

  • Review the Pure Sky Standard

    • All project submissions must follow the format in the standard and align with CDM and UNFCCC principles

  • Confirm the project’s methodology is an approved Pure Sky methodology

  • Engage a third-party validation and verification body

  • Complete Pure Sky’s submission checklist

2. The Challenge

The voluntary carbon market is growing but plagued by opacity, fragmented standards, and concerns over credit quality. Traditional registries are centralized and often lack transparency, leaving participants uncertain and slowing adoption.

3. The Pure Sky Solution

  • Transparency: Every project, issuance, trade, and retirement is recorded on-chain

  • Community governance: SKY Token holders vote on proposals, approve projects, and shape methodologies via sub-DAOs

  • Validator incentives: Network participants secure the system and earn a share of network fees

  • Scalability: Migration to the XRPL EVM sidechain brings lower costs and higher throughput

4. Market Opportunity

According to a 2025 report by Ecosystem Marketplace, the voluntary carbon offsets market is valued at approximately US $535M. Demand for verified, trustworthy offsets is accelerating, driven by regulatory pressures, corporate sustainability goals, and consumer expectations. PureSky is positioned to meet this demand with a registry that is transparent, decentralized, and economically aligned.

5. SKY Token & Governance

  • Token: SKY

  • Total supply: 300,000,000 SKY (held by current members)

  • Minting policy: Fixed supply; no additional tokens can be created. The issuer account is permanently blackholed

  • Utility: Governance voting, staking, validator collateral, and participation in sub-DAOs

  • Staking rewards: Distributed from network fees, not through new token issuance

  • Governance:

    • SKY Token holders vote on key proposals

    • Specialized sub-DAOs manage methodologies, project approvals, and node operations

6. Network Fees

Pure Sky sustains itself through multi-faceted network fees rather than token inflation. Fees include:

  • Project registration — fee for submitting a project to the registry

  • Issuance — $0.05 per approved carbon credit

  • Transactions — fee on trades or transfers of credits

  • Retirement — fee when credits are retired to offset emissions

A portion of all fees is distributed to validators and node operators; the remainder accrues to the DAO Treasury for platform development, audits, and community programs.

Current Fee Structure (Effective September 15, 2025)

  • Membership and participation — achieved by holding and staking SKY Tokens

  • Project submission — 5,000 of approved stablecoins (fully refundable upon approval)

  • Methodology submission — 5,000 of approved stablecoins (fully refundable upon approval)

  • Issuance — 0.05 of approved stablecoins per credit issued

  • Retirement — No fee

7. Intellectual Property

At the heart of Pure Sky is the protocol itself, the smart contracts and on-chain logic first developed by Pure Sky Registry LLC. This software is open source under the BSD license, so anyone is free to use, adapt, and build on it. The live Pure Sky network, however, is different: its treated as a digital public good, owned and governed collectively by the Pure Sky DAO. With SKY Tokens, anyone can participate in shaping and growing this shared foundation.

8. Applications and Services

Pure Sky LLC, operating independently from the DAO, develops and maintains the applications you see at puresky.earth. These apps make it easy for individuals and businesses to interact with the registry and come with additional features and services. It’s important to note that holding SKY Tokens does not give ownership of these applications, they remain the property of Pure Sky LLC.

9. Permissionless Innovation

Pure Sky was designed to be open. Anyone can build their own apps, tools, or marketplaces on top of the protocol, just as Pure Sky LLC has created web, mobile, and enterprise solutions. These third-party projects belong to their creators, contributing to a diverse and thriving ecosystem while keeping the core registry open, transparent, and secure for all.

10. Migration to XRPL EVM Sidechain

Pure Sky DAO was originally deployed on Ethereum Layer 2 through Optimism. Following a community governance vote, the DAO later migrated to Base to support the continued growth and evolution of the ecosystem.

11. Conclusion

Pure Sky DAO brings transparency and accountability to carbon markets. With SKY as the governance and incentive layer, a sustainable fee model, and XRPL EVM for scalability, Pure Sky is positioned to be a trusted, decentralized registry for high-quality carbon credits.

Frequently asked questions