What is Celo (CELO)?

Deep Dive

1. Purpose & Value Proposition

Celo was founded to leverage blockchain for financial inclusion. Its core mission is to build a more accessible financial system, targeting the billions of people worldwide who have a mobile phone but may lack access to traditional banking. By optimizing for mobile and abstracting technical hurdles—like allowing users to pay fees in stablecoins—Celo lowers the barrier to entry for real-world use cases like remittances, savings, and peer-to-peer payments, especially in emerging economies.

2. Technology & User Experience

Technically, Celo is a fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible Layer-2. This means developers can use the same tools as on Ethereum, but users benefit from significantly improved scalability and lower costs. Key user-friendly innovations include fee abstraction (paying gas fees with stablecoins), 1-second block finality for fast confirmations, and an ultralight client that drastically reduces data usage, making it viable on basic mobile networks.

3. Ecosystem & Core Use Cases

The ecosystem is built around stablecoins and practical applications. It hosts native stablecoins like cUSD and cEUR via Mento, and major stablecoins like USDT are deeply integrated, accounting for over 56% of transaction fees paid. A flagship product is MiniPay, a wallet built into the Opera browser, which has activated over 11 million wallets and processed hundreds of millions of transactions for small, everyday payments. This focus has driven Celo to lead Ethereum L2s in daily active users.

Conclusion

Celo is fundamentally a payments-focused Ethereum Layer-2 that combines developer-friendly technology with a relentless focus on mobile accessibility and stablecoin utility to serve real-world financial needs. How will its ongoing evolution as an L2 further bridge the gap between blockchain technology and mainstream adoption?