What $ETT is
$ETT is the institutional-tier attestation token for renewable energy on the EDMA ecosystem. Where $EDM handles protocol-level economics, $EDSD handles cross-border settlement, and $CLE handles retail flows, $ETT handles the provenance of the underlying clean kilowatt-hours. Each $ETT represents ten kilowatt-hours of verified renewable generation, signed by a registered attestor in the on-chain registry of approved verifiers.
The token solves a specific problem: the existing renewable energy credential markets (Renewable Energy Certificates, Solar Renewable Energy Certificates, Guarantees of Origin in Europe, International Renewable Energy Certificates globally) all suffer from a fragmented registry problem. The same kilowatt-hour of generation can be sold as multiple credentials across separate registries because no central authority enforces uniqueness. $ETT solves this through non-transferability and a single canonical chain of provenance: once a credential mints on EDMA L2, it cannot be transferred, only consumed when the underlying energy is delivered or claimed.
Why non-transferable
Non-transferability is the structural innovation that distinguishes $ETT from existing renewable energy credential systems. Transferable credentials work in theory but fail in practice because they are easy to fraudulently duplicate across registries: a wind farm in Texas generates ten thousand kilowatt-hours, mints credentials in the Texas REC registry, then turns around and mints additional credentials for the same generation in the voluntary REC market, then potentially again in an international Guarantee of Origin program. Buyers in each market pay for what they believe is unique provenance, but the underlying physical generation has been monetized multiple times.
Non-transferable $ETT closes this vector. The producer holds the credential until it is burned (consumed) at the moment of energy delivery or compliance claim. There is no secondary market in the credential itself, no transferability between registries, no way to mint the same kilowatt-hour twice. Buyers who want to acquire $ETT-backed energy do so through the TradeOS marketplace: the credential burns and the buyer receives a permanent on-chain record of the consumption, with the underlying $ETT metadata permanently associated with the buyer's claim. This is the structural property that makes $ETT auditable in a way that transferable credentials are not.
A renewable energy source (a solar installation, a wind turbine, a microgrid generator, a biomass plant) produces electricity. The smart meter integrated with the generation source tracks output continuously. When cumulative output reaches the ten-kilowatt-hour threshold since the last mint, the meter triggers a reading event that propagates to EDMA L2 for attestation.
The smart meter produces a cryptographically signed reading containing the total kilowatt-hours accumulated since the last mint, the precise timestamp range, the meter's identifier, and the meter's own signing key. The reading is submitted to EDMA L2 as a pre-mint transaction. The meter signing key is registered at the time of meter installation and verified by the on-chain meter registry.
A registered attestor reviews and co-signs the reading. The attestor is an entity in the on-chain registry of approved verifiers (a utility, an independent renewable energy auditor, a regulatory body, or a certification firm). The attestor's signature confirms the reading matches physical generation and that the energy source qualifies as renewable per the relevant standards. Multiple attestor signatures may be required for higher-trust applications.
The smart contract receives the attestor-signed reading and validates against three checks: (1) the meter is registered and currently active in the meter registry; (2) the attestor is in good standing in the attestor registry, not under suspension or revocation; (3) the reading falls within expected bounds with no duplicate timestamps and no impossibly-large generation events. Upon validation, the contract proceeds to mint.
The contract mints one $ETT per ten kilowatt-hours, transferred to the producer's registered wallet with the full metadata payload (source, timestamp, location, attestor signatures). The token is non-transferable: it can only be burned (consumed) when the underlying energy is delivered to a buyer or claimed against a compliance obligation. The mint event is permanent and visible to all participants.
The $ETT mint event is batched with other EDMA L2 transactions and anchored to Ethereum mainnet at the next batch interval. The provenance trail is now complete: physical electricity generation, smart meter reading, attestor signature, chain mint, Ethereum anchor. Any party (regulators, buyers, auditors, compliance counterparties) can trace the $ETT back through this chain to the original generation event.
Metadata and provenance
Every $ETT carries metadata that makes it eligible for the full range of institutional renewable energy markets. The generation source identifier (solar farm, wind facility, microgrid, biomass plant, hydro generator) determines eligibility for attribute-specific markets where source type matters: a corporate ESG buyer pursuing a 100 percent solar commitment cannot accept wind-sourced credentials, and the source identifier in $ETT metadata enables that filtering at the protocol level rather than requiring trust in a credential broker.
The timestamp metadata (down to the hour, or finer for time-of-use programs) enables granular markets where the timing of generation matches the timing of consumption. A buyer in a 24/7 carbon-free energy program needs credentials whose generation timestamp matches their consumption profile; $ETT metadata supports this directly. The geographic metadata (grid zone, latitude and longitude, or regional identifier) enables flex markets where credentials must match the buyer's grid zone for grid congestion and locational marginal pricing programs. The attestor signature(s) provide the trust chain back to the verifying entity, with the on-chain attestor registry enabling reputation tracking and revocation handling.
Integration with the token system
$ETT is one of four purpose-built tokens that compose into the EDMA ecosystem. Institutional trade flows on TradeOS settle in $EDSD, with $ETT credentials transferring (through burn and re-attestation in the buyer's compliance record) at delivery milestones. Retail consumer flows operate in $CLE, with every $CLE in circulation referencing an underlying portion of $ETT to preserve provenance across the institutional-to-retail bridge. Protocol fees on every transaction are paid in $EDM, with a portion burned through the protocol's deflationary mechanism.
The token system is closed in the sense that every value movement either uses or burns a token at the appropriate tier. $ETT specifically handles the institutional-tier credential layer, which is the layer most prone to fraud in existing renewable energy markets and the layer that benefits most directly from the non-transferability constraint. For the retail-tier translation (how individual consumers participate in this audit trail without operating at institutional granularity), see the $CLE page. For the settlement layer that pays the producers when $ETT-backed energy is delivered, see the $EDSD page.
Continue exploring the EDMA token system
$ETT is the institutional attestation layer of the four-token system. For the protocol layer that runs governance and fees, see $EDM. For the settlement currency that replaces Letters of Credit, see $EDSD. For the retail consumer layer that bridges institutional credentials to individual prosumers, see $CLE. For the full system view tracing value flow across all four tokens, see tokenomics. For the ESG application detail on $ETT specifically (compliance markets, granular and flex markets, voluntary markets, REC versus $ETT comparison), see $ETT on the ESG side.
