Acquiring a QET: How the On-Chain Transfer Works

To acquire emissions tokens on Greentruth is to take ownership of a verified, registry-grade record of a specific physical unit of fuel or electricity — the third stage in the marketplace lifecycle that runs Mint → Discover → Acquire → Retire. This page explains what acquisition actually is, the two acquisition paths the platform supports today, what the buyer holds after each, and how the acquisition record connects to the retirement that will eventually anchor a reporting claim.

Acquiring a QET, in one paragraph. A QET acquisition on Greentruth is an on-chain transfer of a Quantified Emissions Token from one wallet to another, recorded irrevocably on the EarnDLT registry (on Hedera Hashgraph). Buyers can acquire QETs in two ways: spot, by taking an existing minted token today, or forward, by reserving a producer's not-yet-minted batch via a non-tradable Reservation Token (fQET / Forward) that converts 1:1 to a verified QET at the producer's mint event. Both paths settle through a Greentruth-issued T+5 invoice, and in both paths the QETs unlock for transfer or retirement (direct or by proxy) once payment is received and recorded on the platform.

Spot and Forward Transactions in depth

How a QET is structured to begin with

Acquiring a QET means transferring a specific, single-mint-enforced certificate from a seller's wallet to the buyer's wallet on the EarnDLT registry. The token is not duplicated in transit and it is not re-issued — it is the same record, now held by a different party. That single point matters more than any other detail of the workflow: a QET acquisition is the transfer of an existing unique record, not the creation of a new one.

Two related framings worth keeping straight:

• Acquisition is not retirement. Acquiring a QET puts a verified attribute record in the buyer's wallet. It does not anchor a GHG accounting claim. The claim is anchored only when the token is retired against a specific reporting period and entity.
• Acquisition is not Scope 1 transfer. The producer's Scope 1 inventory stays the producer's. The buyer that acquires the token sharpens the inputs to its own Scope 1, Scope 2, or Scope 3 number when the token is eventually retired against that number.

How retirement actually works

How minting precedes the marketplace

Greentruth supports two ways to acquire a QET, and the choice depends on whether the token you need has already been minted. For the full feature-level breakdown, see Spot and Forward Transactions.

A spot acquisition on Greentruth runs as a four-step transaction. Each step writes a record to the EarnDLT registry that the buyer's auditor can later reconstruct.

• Discovery and selection. The buyer identifies the QETs that match its attribute requirements — geography, basin, MRV tier, methodology version, producer-carried grades — in the Marketplace, typically via the Discovery flow.
• Order confirmation. The buyer reviews contract-level CI, total volume, and price. Free GREET-default line items show as $0. Paid lines (where producer-specific QETs or QET-RNG Thermal Certificates are added to upgrade a default) are itemized by stage. The Confirm Order modal locks the invoice.
• On-chain transfer to locked wallet. At checkout, the QETs transfer on-chain from the seller's wallet to the buyer's wallet in locked state. The transfer is recorded on Hedera Hashgraph through the EarnDLT registry.
• T+5 invoice and unlock. Greentruth issues a T+5 invoice (payable within 5 business days). When the buyer's payment is received and recorded on the platform, the QETs unlock — available to transfer, retire directly, or retire by proxy on behalf of a third party.

For programmatic spot acquisition via API

A forward acquisition reserves a producer's not-yet-minted batch and settles when that batch is actually minted. The instrument that represents your binding claim during the reservation period is a Reservation Token (fQET / Forward) — a Hedera-native token, restricted from trading, that converts 1:1 to a verified QET at the producer's mint event.

• Discover the forward listing. The producer registers a forecasted batch (facility, commodity, expected token amount, expected carbon intensity, expected delivery date, and three variance bands). The forward appears in the Registry, visually distinguished from minted QETs as fQET / Forward.
• Read the variance bands. Each forward carries three buyer-visible variance bands set by the seller — amount (%), carbon intensity (%), and delivery date (days). These become part of the binding contract at checkout.
• Check out. Add the forward to an order. The reservation fee is $0; the QET unit price is shown as payable on delivery.
• Reservation Token delivered to your wallet. A Reservation Token transfers from the producer's wallet to your wallet on Hedera, with the expected total on delivery surfaced under Pending Transactions.
• Conversion on mint. When the producer's verified batch is minted, the platform burns the Reservation Token and routes the corresponding verified QET into your wallet (in locked state). If the actual mint falls outside the variance bands for a given timeframe, the buyer can cancel that timeframe's automatic purchase from either the Greentruth or Earn interface.
• T+5 invoice and unlock. Greentruth issues a T+5 invoice at delivery (payable within 5 business days). When the buyer's payment is received and recorded on the platform, the verified QETs unlock — available to transfer, retire directly, or retire by proxy.

How forward variance bands and the Reservation Token work in detail

After acquisition, a QET in the buyer's wallet carries the same attribute structure it has carried since mint:

• Unit. The defined physical unit the token represents — for example, one MMBtu of natural gas, one MMBtu of RNG thermal energy, one MWh of electricity, or one tonne of geologically stored CO₂.
• Verified emissions attributes. Multi-pollutant CI in kgCO₂e/MMBtu (for QET-NG and QET-RNG) calculated using IPCC AR5 GWP100 factors (CH₄ = 28, N₂O = 265); the analogous attribute structure for QET-ELEC and QET-CCS.
• Geography and pathway. Producer, basin, and (for transmission) the validated pipeline pathway across EarnDLT's 32,000-segment Lower-48 network model; the analogous grid attribute for QET-ELEC; the project provenance and storage formation for QET-CCS.
• MRV tier, methodology version, and verifier of record. Every token records the data hierarchy tier, methodology version, reference dataset version, and accredited third-party verifier under ISO 14064-3 reasonable assurance.
• Optional grade attributes. Where a producer carries a third-party grade, it is encoded directly on the token rather than referenced externally.
• Acquisition record. The transfer of the token to the buyer's wallet, with timestamp and counterparty, recorded on Hedera Hashgraph.

The token is delivered in both human-readable PDF and machine-readable JSON form, locked until payment confirmation, and then portable for retirement or transfer. A forward-acquired QET carries the same attribute structure once converted; the prior Reservation Token state is recorded in the audit trail.

For an auditor, the meaningful detail is that every step of a QET acquisition leaves a record the buyer doesn't have to construct itself. The EarnDLT registry writes the following acquisition-relevant records:

• Mint record (already on-chain from the producer's earlier issuance, or written at the producer's forward-mint event) — methodology-versioned, verifier-stamped, single-mint enforced.
• Reservation Token issuance and conversion records (forward path only) — Reservation Token mint, transfer to buyer, conversion to verified QET on producer mint.
• Transfer record (written at acquisition for spot, at conversion for forward) — seller wallet, buyer wallet, timestamp, and the order / invoice reference.
• Subsequent retirement record (written at retirement) — irrevocable, anchoring the token to a specific reporting period and entity. See Retirement.

These records collectively form an audit trail from physical unit through producer mint to buyer retirement that an accredited third-party verifier or an internal assurance team can reconstruct without leaving the report. This is also how the platform structurally prevents double counting — the same token cannot be retired by two parties, and a Reservation Token cannot exist alongside its converted QET.

Hedera Token Service documentation

Acquisition and retirement are deliberately separated. The buyer may have a Scope 1, Scope 2, or Scope 3 Category 3 reporting period that does not align with the moment of purchase, or it may want to manage QETs as inventory across multiple reporting cycles. Acquisition gives the buyer flexibility; retirement is the moment the claim is finalized.

Three practical points for buyers managing the gap between acquisition and retirement:

• Acquired-but-held QETs do not anchor a claim. A QET in a wallet is a verified record, but until retired it does not substantiate a specific GHG accounting line. The contractual-instrument quality criteria the GHG Protocol applies are satisfied at retirement, not at acquisition.
• Transferability is preserved for verified QETs. A verified QET can be transferred again before retirement (subject to commercial terms) without losing its provenance. The next holder receives the same record. Reservation Tokens, by contrast, are not transferable — only the converted verified QET can be moved or retired.
• The acquisition record itself is part of the audit trail. Even where retirement is months away, the acquisition record on Hedera is what a verifier reconstructs to confirm chain-of-custody from the producer mint forward.

How the GHG Protocol treats contractual instruments