Group items tagged

Although Celo and Libra share a similar mission - both want to help create prosperity - but Celo is a completely decentralized collective of mission-aligned organizations. "There's no central governing body to determine how Celo will evolve, and people will be able to vote on how Celo evolves."

Bison Trails has announced support for the Celo open network, which enables smartphone users to send crypto directly to a phone number instead of a blockchain address. The added support means that users will be able to transfer value using Celo's stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar on the Bison Trails platform. The Celo tech system has three layers: Celo Blockchain, Celo Core Contracts, and Application.

Celo.Works is a non-custodial mobile wallet, enabling feature phone users to send and receive remittances at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional methods. Celo.Works is built on the Celo blockchain. Celo.Works is accessible, enabling users to send/receive cUSD on feature phones that cost as little as $15.

CLabs, the organization responsible for developing the Celo blockchain, is seeking to return to the Ethereum ecosystem by transitioning from an independent EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum layer-2 solution. It could potentially enable more liquidity to flow between Celo and other chains but also generate extra costs for sequencers, such as fees on the data availability layer and gas on Ethereum. In addition, it is also unclear whether sequencers' rewards would match with current validators' rewards. https://forum.celo.org/t/clabs-proposal-for-celo-to-transition-to-an-ethereum-l2/6109

Deutsche Telekom is purchasing Celo tokens in "significant" size, and investing in infrastructure to support the Celo network, which is working to build a decentralized version of Venmo-style peer-to-peer payment platforms. Celo maps user mobile phone numbers to the public key for a blockchain wallet, which simplifies access to crypto. Deutsche Telekom sees a variety of opportunities using Celo, including remittances.

"With ongoing conversations around sustainability, the environmental impact of blockchain technology and popular, but energy-intensive, cryptocurrencies, we're pleased to share that Celo is a carbon negative blockchain. Very simply, the Celo network's Proof-of-Stake (POS) consensus algorithm naturally requires a tiny fraction of the energy usage of Proof-of-Work (POW) algorithms as used by Bitcoin and Ethereum. And at capacity, the Celo network could process up to 7 million transactions per ton of CO2 emitted by its infrastructure."

Celo, a decentralized financial app, is adding a new stablecoin, backed by the Euro. The Euro stablecoin will be backed by a basket of cryptocurrencies that are algorithmically adjusted to maintain a stable price. The Celo Euro is the second stablecoin to launch on the platform after the Celo Dollar (cUSD), launched in June 2020.

"CELO, the token of Celo, a proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain, jumped in cryptocurrency markets on Monday as officials announced a new $20 million incentive campaign at the start of the Celo Connect conference this week in Barcelona, Spain."

"Through the Grameen COVID-19 project, we obtained deeper insights about the Philippine market and also developed a strong case study for blockchain-powered aid delivery. We made progress in gaining trust and improving the usability of Valora, but need to work with the Celo community to continue to build a robust local ecosystem for cUSD and the Celo Platform. We look forward to future use cases on Celo that enhance financial inclusion and build resilient, prosperous communities."

The Celo Foundation launched Provo, a sandbox for public and official sector experimentation on Celo that's designed to allow central banks to explore and experiment with central bank digital currency (CBDC) and other digital assets. Provo will enable financial and regulatory authorities to test CBDC designs and implementation mechanisms in permissioned and/or permissionless, risk-free environments on the Celo platform.

"Circle will launch USDC natively on Celo to further everyday adoption of digital currencies and assets. Celo is a carbon-negative, mobile-first, EVM-compatible blockchain built for the real world. USDC is the leading regulated digital dollar powering payments and access to a stable store of value worldwide."

Several members of the Facebook-backed Libra Project have announced their alliance with a rival stablecoin project known as Celo. Since the middle of March, members that have joined the Celo Alliance for Prosperity include, among many others, Coinbase Ventures, Anchorage Mercy Corps, Andreessen Horowitz and Bison Trails Co.

Silicon Valley blockchain startup cLabs just raised $10 million for the Celo project through a token sale to accredited investors on the CoinList platform. Roughly 109 investors from dozens of countries participated in the auction, paying an average of $5 per Celo Gold token. The average buyer spent $519 on these tokens and often earned 50 bonus tokens for referrals.

"DuniaPay, which previously announced support for in-app crypto transactions in Celo Dollars (cUSD), now has a new personal savings feature that offers its 18,000 active users over 8% annual interest on savings - more than double the 3.5% starting interest rates traditional banks typically offer. These high interest rates are made possible by cXOF, a community stablecoin currency that DuniaPay developed on Celo to power remittances, savings, lending, and online payments."

Proof-of-stake- based blockchain Celo suffered from an on-and-off network outage for 24 hours on July 14. It was the network's first outage since the mainnet launch in April 2020. Celo is an open-source blockchain that enables users with phone numbers to make payments with crypto by using their phone numbers as a proxy for public keys.

The Celo price stability protocol can be thought of as a hybrid crypto-collateralization/seigniorage-style model, designed in a way that we believe offers the best of all three approaches. The protocol supports an ecosystem of stable currencies, the first of which, the Celo Dollar, will be pegged to the US Dollar.

The Silicon Valley crypto startup cLabs, focused on mobile payments and the Celo blockchain project, is following another precedent from Facebook's Libra playbook by launching an industry association through a separate Celo Foundation.

"The digital currency of the foundation - Celo Dollar - will be pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by a reserve of other cryptocurrencies. Unlike other digital currencies, this can be transferred only by knowing the mobile numbers of the users."

The team behind Celo, C Labs, is combining the ethereum and Libra models with a $30 million war chest from the likes of Polychain Capital and Andreesen Horowitz (a16z).

There are now 75 members in Celo's "Alliance for Prosperity" stablecoin payments network ahead of its mid-May mainet launch. Celo is a mobile-first blockchain-based platform alongside a suite of financial tools accessible to anyone with a basic smartphone. The stability protocol can host an ecology of stable value currencies like the Celo Dollar, regional currencies, and commodity prices.