Bitcarbon: The Governance Token for the Carats Protocol

Bitcarbon Foundation is a Cayman Islands Foundation Company whose mission is to establish and support a trustless and decentralized global commodity token, created from Diamond Standard commodities, for use as a store of wealth and digital payment medium.

Bitcarbon [ticker symbol BCAR] is the governance token for the Carats Protocol—and the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that guides the Bitcarbon Foundation. To fund the development and launch of the Carats Protocol and Carats Smart Contract, the Bitcarbon Foundation may offer Bitcarbon tokens to investors and the community.

The key operational responsibility of the Bitcarbon Foundation is to provide for the custody of the Diamond Standard commodities that make up the redeemable reserve behind Carats, and to develop and maintain the Carats Smart Contract. The Carats Smart Contract manages the conversion of Diamond Standard Coin BCC tokens and Diamond Standard Bar BCB tokens into Carats commodity tokens onto various blockchain platform, and the reverse. It maintains the reserve of BCC and BCB tokens exchanged for Carats, and it manages the Carats Ratio.

The Carats Smart Contract collects fees in Carats to pay for the operation of the Carats Protocol, especially to pay the custodians holding the Diamond Standard Commodities. The Bitcarbon Foundation has engaged DS Admin Trust to administer the physical custody of the Carats reserve in the vaults of qualified custodians, including Brinks, Loomis and Malca Amit.

Fees to pay for insured physical custody of the reserve are generated by a slow increase in the number of Carats per Diamond Standard commodity, which is the Carats Ratio. The Carats Ratio was initiated as 5000 Carats per 1 Diamond Standard Coin, or 5000:1. If the ratio increases to 5001:1, and there are 1000 Diamond Standard Coin BCC tokens held by the Carats Smart Contract, then 5000 new Carats are created by the Smart Contract. The balance of Carats held by each user does not change, but in order to redeem a commodity, a user will now need one additional Carat. The 5000 new Carats are delivered to the Bitcarbon Foundation, which sells Carats as necessary to pay for global custody fees and operations.

The Carats Smart Contract could also charge fees for conversions and transactions. The transaction fee rates are initially set at zero, to incentivize the conversion of Diamond Standard commodities to Carats, and the use of Carats for transactions.

DAO stakeholders—Bitcarbon token holders—exercise control over the Carats Protocol, including economic parameters and smart contract upgrades, through on-chain governance proposals. The DAO might also elect committees or multisigs to manage certain processes, such as updating certain economic parameters or pausing the protocol in critical times.