The latest shock to global energy markets is forcing a hard question: if the world is burning more fossil fuel, who is keeping an honest count of the emissions? Green Carbon Token (GCT) believes the answer has to be on the blockchain — and it is building the infrastructure to make that happen.
An energy shock that pushed Asia back to coal
Since the war involving Iran began on February 28, 2026, the Strait of Hormuz has turned from a shipping lane into a bottleneck. Before the conflict, about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and LNG moved through it. Reuters reported that on September 10, only seven vessels made the crossing, against a 10-day average of 15. Even after LNG shipments picked up in September, they remained far below pre-war levels, and gas prices in Asia and Europe hit their highest since the 2022–2023 energy crisis.
For much of Asia, the fallback was coal. Since March, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand have leaned harder on coal-fired power, and Japan’s JERA has kept its coal fleet running at high utilization.
The lesson is uncomfortable but clear. Global energy still depends on a handful of physical routes and on geopolitical stability. And when the energy mix gets dirtier, the tools for measuring and offsetting emissions stop being a nice-to-have and become essential.
Carbon markets are growing — but they have a trust problem
Carbon markets are where those tools live. The global carbon credit market was valued at about $114.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach roughly $482 billion by 2035 (Global Market Insights). The voluntary segment is expanding even faster, with one forecast showing growth from about $15.8 billion to roughly $120.5 billion between 2025 and 2030 (Mordor Intelligence).
Yet the market’s plumbing has not kept up. Credits sit in separate registries, country by country. The same credit can be sold twice, or the same reduction claimed by more than one company — the problem known as double counting. Buyers and ESG investors spend heavily just to confirm that what they bought is real and has not already been used.
A market this large cannot run on trust it cannot verify.
GCT’s answer: the “Internet of Markets”
GCT’s core concept, the “Internet of Markets,” is designed to bring carbon credits and other tokenized assets onto a single blockchain network, alongside digital settlement and compliance-ready transactions.
Every credit with a traceable history. GCT is designed to turn carbon credits into tokens called CATs, recording each credit’s full lifecycle on-chain, from issuance to retirement. Once in place, a credit cannot be quietly used twice.
Settlement without banking hours. GCT aims to settle cross-border payments and securities trades in minutes, 24/7, instead of routing them through chains of correspondent banks over several days.
Compliance by design. Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are planned to handle KYC/AML checks at the moment of transfer, without exposing personal data — the kind of framework regulated institutions need before they can take part.
Green at the protocol level. The network runs on Proof of Space and Time (PoST), which secures the chain with spare disk space instead of energy-intensive mining. It uses less than 1% of the energy of conventional Proof of Work chains and needs no specialized hardware. For a project built around carbon, that matters: the network itself is green.
According to its roadmap, GCT is currently in Phase 2, focused on asset digitization through the CAT standard and a verifiable carbon credit issuance platform, with institutional settlement pilots to follow.
Finance is already moving onchain
GCT is not building in isolation. Traditional finance is moving the same way.
In April 2026, Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot to nine blockchains and reported a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate, up 50% from the previous quarter. In July, it launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform, giving banks and fintechs a single environment to mint, move and manage stablecoins.
Regulation is part of the picture too. In the United States, the CLARITY Act failed a procedural vote in the Senate on September 15, 2026, by 49 to 50, short of the 60 votes required. The bill has not become law, but the debate shows how central clear rules for digital assets have become.
GCT and Visa are separate companies, and no investment or partnership between them has been announced. But when one of the world’s largest payment networks treats blockchain as core infrastructure, it confirms the direction GCT is building toward.
From DEXs to the world’s markets
GCT currently trades mainly on DEXs. That is only the starting line.
The next step coming into view is listings on leading DEXs such as Uniswap and SushiSwap. Uniswap is the largest DEX in the world, with more than $3.6 trillion in cumulative trading volume — the first DEX ever to pass $3 trillion. SushiSwap runs on more than 40 blockchains, more than any other major DEX. Together, they would put GCT within reach of investors across Ethereum and a wide range of other networks.
Beyond that, GCT has its sights on major global exchanges, along with infrastructure development, fundraising and international expansion. This is where the real shift happens. On a DEX, buyers need to manage their own wallets. On a major exchange, anyone can buy with a smartphone app. More than 741 million people worldwide now own crypto, and the largest exchange alone has over 300 million registered users.
A listing on major exchanges would transform GCT’s liquidity and visibility almost overnight — and the name on the board would speak for the project’s credibility on its own.
The window before the world arrives
Energy markets are being reshaped by conflict. Carbon markets are growing faster than their infrastructure. Finance is moving onchain, and regulators are racing to write the rules. GCT sits where all of these trends meet, with a model built to connect carbon markets, tokenized assets and global settlement.
Today, GCT is still known to only a small circle of investors who found it on DEXs. Once it reaches Uniswap, SushiSwap and then major global exchanges, the rest of the world will see it at the same moment — and the early position will be gone.
If there is a time to take a position in GCT, it is now — before the expansion begins.