Celo

What is Celo (CELO)?

Celo is a blockchain ecosystem that focuses on a device that can be found on almost every person at any given time.

Namely, mobile phones, or smartphones, are now well-understood and ubiquitous. Many find it hard to get by without one, given how integral these have become in daily life.

Smartphones are also starting to dominate when it comes to public infrastructure. Underdeveloped and developing countries often have excellent smartphone infrastructure and connectivity, especially when compared to television, terrestrial Internet, and even road and rail.

Celo does its best to make its blockchain network as smartphone-adjacent as possible, from using phone numbers as public keys to simplified transactions.

Who are the Founders of Celo?

Celo was founded in April 2020 by Rene Reinsberg, Sep Kamvar, and Marek Olszewski. Reinsberg leads the business side of the project and is CEO of cLabs, while Kamvar and Olszewski focus on engineering.

Reinsberg co-founded Locu Inc. with Olszewski, and the pair worked as CEO and CTO of the platform, respectively, until it was purchased by GoDaddy. They stayed at GoDaddy following the buyout, with Reinsberg taking the role of GM Get Found and VP of Emerging Products. Meanwhile, Olszewski works as VP of Engineering at GoDaddy.

Reinsberg has an extensive background in the business world, having worked at McKinsey, the World Bank, and Morgan Stanley.

Meanwhile, Olszewski worked at Microsoft Research, Google, and Sun Labs before founding machine intelligence startup Locu. Olszewski has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The third co-founder, Sep Kamvar, was an Associate Professor at MIT and previously worked as a consulting professor for Stanford. Kamvar was an Engineering Lead at Google but is best known as the inventor of the Eigentrust digital reputation system. Eigentrust has been used by Google as part of their Pagerank algorithm, as well as by the NEM blockchain.

How Does Celo Work?

Celo can be summed up as a fully EVM-compatible proof-of-stake layer-1 protocol that features a fast, ultralight client designed for mobile devices. The transaction fees on the Celo network can be paid with tokens or stablecoins.

Put more simply, Celo functions like a standard blockchain and has full compatibility with smart contract technology and decentralized applications designed on Ethereum.

Smart contracts are now a huge part of the blockchain world. The industry began with Bitcoin, but Ethereum’s rise as a programmable blockchain changed the game. Smart contracts allow users to trust code rather than intermediaries and allow complex decentralized applications (dApps) to be built on blockchains like Celo.

Decentralized finance is one of the biggest things to come out of smart contracts and dApp technology. Many financial products and activities are subject to heavy gatekeeping, and this is especially true in developing countries. It is quite likely that a resident of these countries owns a smartphone but remains unbanked.

This is where Celo comes in. It has a simple, easy-to-use client and uses mobile phone tech but grants access to dApps that allow users access to services and products like DeFi.

Celo does this by using a decentralized phone verification protocol. This provides a range of borderless fiat gateways and allows users to send funds easily to any mobile phone number.

What Makes Celo Unique?

Celo’s use of mobile phone numbers instead of public keys is a simple but truly unique feature of the protocol that could be vital in gaining mass adoption.

The public key system is a barrier for some and an inconvenience for many, given that it is difficult to memorize or use. Even copy-pasting your own public keys could be a process involving several clicks (or screen touches).

While there are various solutions to this problem, including native solutions on some blockchains, Celo uses phone numbers. Most people are accustomed to memorizing mobile phone numbers, even if only their own.

Behind the scenes, Celo uses an on-chain public key infrastructure, linking mobile phone numbers to public keys. Therefore, there is a public key in play, but users can simply use their phone numbers instead, as the two are linked.

Celo is also a multi-asset protocol. Aside from its native CELO token, it uses stablecoins like cUSD to enable a stable transfer of value between users. These stablecoin tokens issued by Celo are pegged to the price of fiat currencies but backed by crypto assets like Bitcoin, USDC, and Dai in reserve.

Mento, a decentralized stability protocol, powers the stablecoins on the Celo blockchain. There are currently three stablecoins in issue, cUSD, cEUR, and cREAL.

How is the Celo Network Secured?

Celo is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network built using the Go implementation of Ethereum.

PoS blockchains are a lot less resource-intensive than proof-of-work blockchains, and they use validators and nodes to stay secure. Celo accomplishes this by using a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm.

In Celo’s BFT, a defined set of validators is used to reach a consensus on the validity of transactions on the network, even if one-third of the nodes misbehave. This misbehavior includes maliciousness but also being offline.

The Celo whitepaper defines a maximum of 100 validators on the network. These validators are responsible for critical tasks on the network, including protocol changes and supplying the hardware that keeps Celo running.

As such, validators have to be compensated. To perform the role of validator, they have to lock Celo tokens to the protocol as a stake. As they perform their duties as validators, they earn a reward proportional to their stake.

The Celo network also has nodes of different types. Light and ultralight mobile nodes are enough to make transactions and use the network, but full nodes help service these users. Full nodes are compensated by a small gateway fee that is attached to transactions by the lighter nodes.

Networks like Celo, which deal in the movement of money, also have to be rigorously audited in every way. The Celo Foundation’s website tracks the audits that Celo has received for its smart contracts, security, and economics.

What is the Use of CELO?

CELO, formerly known as CGLD, is the native token of the Celo blockchain ecosystem. Its main functions on the network are staking and governance.

Validators require CELO to stake in the platform and are then compensated in CELO tokens. Users who delegate their tokens also earn a share of these rewards, making the CELO token a potential source of passive income.

Holders of CELO can also participate in the governance of the platform. Those that hold a certain threshold of CELO can propose and vote on protocol changes. These proposals require CELO to be locked into a smart contract in a function similar to that of a bond or deposit.

Finally, CELO is also used to support the stablecoin network on Celo. The CELO token forms part of the reserve backing stablecoins like cUSD, and the purchase and sale of CELO are key to arbitrage.

Arbitrage is a mechanism by which cUSD’s peg to the US dollar is supported. When the value of cUSD rises above that of a dollar, arbitrage traders buy CELO, exchange it for cUSD, then sell cUSD. This selling depresses the price of cUSD back toward that of the dollar.

When cUSD drops under a dollar, arbitrage traders buy cUSD and exchange it for CELO, pushing cUSD back up to $1.

This arbitrage is possible because users can mint cUSD by sending $1 worth of CELO to the Mento Reserve and burn cUSD by converting it back to CELO.

Who Controls Celo?

Celo is controlled by the Celo Foundation, a US-based non-profit that supports the growth and development of the Celo network. The Celo Foundation carries out a range of activities guided by the Celo community. These activities include education, technical research, environmental health, community engagement, and ecosystem outreach.

The Celo Foundation’s mission statement is to “build a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity—for everyone.”

In this regard, the Celo Foundation created the so-called Alliance for Prosperity. This group’s stated goal is to improve financial conditions where it is most needed.

How Much CELO Is In Circulation?

The CELO token has a fixed total supply of 1 billion CELO, 600 million of which were available at the mainnet launch in April 2020.

The remaining 40% of the CELO supply is subject to a gradual unlocking schedule, with vesting in place for early investors and tokens being released via fees and rewards.

Early CELO holders include venture firms like Dragonfly Capital Partners, a16z, SocialCapital, and Polychain Capital. The project also has notable individual investors such as Jack Dorsey, Arianna Simpson, Naval Ravikant, and Keisuke Honda.

How Do You Buy CELO?

CELO is available on a variety of exchange platforms, and you can buy it with fiat currencies as well as stablecoins.

However, the Celo network has its own native smartphone wallets. Celo’s Valora app is available in over 100 countries, and you can buy Celo directly from Valora.

Is It Possible to Buy Celo Instantly?

Celo is a fast, low-fee blockchain, and the Valora app promises its users free transactions. You can also purchase CELO instantly on most cryptocurrency exchanges, although the settlement can sometimes take a while.

How Do You Store CELO?

You can store CELO on most exchange platforms, but that wasn’t really what the CELO token was designed for. It’s meant to be used on web3 wallets like Valora, which facilitate transactions to any phone number in the world. That’s not something you can do from an exchange account.

Celo has also integrated with many other notable wallet providers, such as Ledger. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether you prefer the convenience and functionality of Valora or want to get involved in staking and governance with the official CeloWallet.app.

The other native wallet options are Celo Terminal for desktop, Metamask fork CeloExtensionWallet, and multi-chain option Steakwallet. More details on these and non-native-supported wallets are available in Celo’s documentation.

Celo Energy Consumption

Celo is a proof-of-stake blockchain network, meaning that it relies primarily on economic incentives for security rather than sheer computing power.

The network’s validators do have to have a certain level of infrastructure, as do full nodes, but users only need a light or mobile client to use Celo.

Celo has also partnered with Moss and uses carbon credits in the form of MCO2 tokens to offset company greenhouse gas emissions. This makes Celo a carbon-negative blockchain.

Is CELO a Good Investment?

Celo is a compelling blockchain project that holds the interest of many thanks to its approach and very valid business case. In addition to this, the Celo network has a vast array of partnerships that it can lean on.

While development activity can seem quiet at times, Celo continues to integrate with various other services. Interoperability and network effect are at the heart of the project, and the Celo community is vibrant and active.

According to end-2021 figures released by the Celo Foundation, there was well over 5000% year-on-year growth in both Celo addresses and the total number of Celo transactions. There were also almost a thousand active builders on the network.

While Celo has plenty of competition from a variety of cryptocurrency protocols, especially Ethereum layer 2s, it remains an exciting project that can potentially take over smartphones the world over.