Waste-to-Value Protocol

The protocol's foundation is the digital representation of physical waste as on-chain tokens. This involves:

• Waste Origin Tokens (WOTs): NFTs or fungible tokens representing a specific quantity and type of verified waste (e.g., 100 tons of post-consumer plastic).
• Process Verification: Oracles and IoT sensors feed data to smart contracts to confirm waste collection, sorting, and processing.
• Fractional Ownership: Large waste streams can be divided, enabling smaller investors to participate in the value chain.

Entities that generate or collect waste and initiate its entry into the protocol.

• Municipalities & Waste Management Companies: Submit streams of municipal solid waste (MSW), construction debris, or industrial byproducts.
• Manufacturers & Corporations: Provide pre-consumer scrap, end-of-life products, or production waste as part of ESG commitments.
• Agricultural Operations: Supply biomass, crop residues, or food waste. Their role is to provide verified waste feedstock in exchange for tokenized credits or revenue.

Third-party entities responsible for ensuring the integrity of the waste-to-value chain.

• Validation Nodes: Use decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) like sensors and satellite imagery to attest to the existence, quantity, and quality of waste.
• Certification Bodies: Provide real-world accreditation (e.g., for recycled content or carbon offset calculations) that is recorded on-chain.
• Their work prevents double-counting and fraudulent reporting, which is critical for the protocol's credibility and the value of its output tokens.

The physical infrastructure that transforms waste into valuable products.

• Recycling Facilities: Convert plastic, glass, or metal waste into raw materials.
• Waste-to-Energy Plants: Incinerate waste to generate electricity or heat, with emissions tracked.
• Advanced Recycling & Chemical Plants: Use pyrolysis or gasification to create fuels, chemicals, or new polymers.
• They consume Waste Origin Tokens and mint new Output Asset Tokens (e.g., recycled plastic pellets, carbon credits, energy certificates).

Financial participants who create markets for the protocol's tokens.

• Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs): Host liquidity pools for trading Waste Origin Tokens against Output Asset Tokens or stablecoins.
• Commodity Traders & Funds: Use the protocol to gain exposure to recycled material markets or environmental credits.
• Liquidity Providers (LPs): Deposit token pairs into automated market makers (AMMs) to earn fees, enabling efficient price discovery and settlement for waste-derived assets.

The final consumers of the protocol's output and the rules governing it.

• Brands & Manufacturers: Purchase Output Asset Tokens to secure verified recycled content for their products, meeting sustainability targets.
• Energy Offtakers: Buy renewable energy certificates (RECs) from waste-to-energy conversion.
• Regulators & Standards: Protocols often align with frameworks like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), plastic credit schemes, or Article 6 of the Paris Agreement for carbon markets, ensuring real-world compliance and demand.

A consensus mechanism or token distribution method where participants permanently destroy, or 'burn,' cryptocurrency tokens. This act of provable scarcity is used to mint or allocate new assets, aligning incentives by requiring a verifiable economic sacrifice. It is a foundational mechanism for many Waste-to-Value systems.

• Purpose: Secures a network or fairly launches a new asset without the energy consumption of Proof of Work.
• Example: Burning Bitcoin to mint a new chain's native token.

The economic model governing a cryptocurrency or token, encompassing its supply, distribution, utility, and incentive structures. For a Waste-to-Value Protocol, tokenomics is critical, as it designs the rules for how value is extracted from 'waste' assets (like transaction fees or retired tokens) and redistributed to participants.

• Key Elements: Burn mechanisms, staking rewards, fee capture, and buybacks.
• Goal: To create a sustainable, deflationary, or value-accruing system.

A design pattern where a protocol systematically collects fees from on-chain activity (e.g., DEX trades, lending interest) and uses them to benefit token holders. This is a primary 'waste' input for many Value-to-Value models.

• Mechanisms: May involve buying and burning the native token, distributing fees to stakers, or funding a treasury.
• Examples: Protocols like Uniswap (fee switch proposal) or MakerDAO (surplus auction system).

An asset with a decreasing circulating supply over time. Waste-to-Value Protocols often engineer deflation through continuous buy-and-burn cycles, using captured value to permanently remove tokens from circulation.

• Effect: Creates upward pressure on the price of the remaining tokens, all else being equal.
• Method: Contrasts with inflationary assets that have new tokens minted as rewards.

A pool of assets (e.g., ETH, stablecoins, LP tokens) controlled by a DAO or smart contract. In Waste-to-Value systems, the treasury often acts as the reservoir for captured value, which is then deployed according to governance to fund burns, grants, or other value-accruing activities.

• Function: Capital allocation arm of the protocol.
• Management: Typically governed by token holder vote.

A token that grants holders voting rights to influence the development and parameters of a decentralized protocol. In a Waste-to-Value system, this token is often the asset that accrues value from the protocol's activities, and its holders decide how captured value (the 'waste') is recycled.

• Utility: Votes on fee structures, treasury allocation, and burn rates.
• Value Accrual: Benefits from successful protocol economics and token burns.