Celo Ecosystem

What is Celo network

Celo is a blockchain platform designed with a focus on usability and accessibility for people around the world, especially in countries with low access to banking services. The project promises to be a bridge between traditional financial systems and the world of decentralized finance, enabling users to make payments, transfers and other financial services directly through their cell phones without the need for intermediaries.

Celo was founded under the leadership of Rene Reinsberg in 2017.

It should be noted that he previously worked for several years in the hosting company GoDaddy. Since then, the project has grown quite a bit, formed a large team, which includes experienced employees from a variety of areas. Including public and private sector, technology, non-profit and non-governmental institutions..

The Celo vision is to provide DeFi tools and services to the community while making money mobile and easily accessible. It supports both proprietary and non-proprietary digital assets, including crypto assets and CBDCs, enabling free circulation between devices, telecom operators and countries.

Investors & partners

• a16z (Andreessen Horowitz)
• Greenfield Capital
• Electric Capital
• Polychain Capital
• Social Capital
• SV Angel
• Valor Capital Group
• Coinbase Ventures and many others.

Among Celo partners, you can notice projects such as:

• Uniswap
• Mento Labs
• Curve
• Tatum
• Mintdropz and many others.

Within a short time, it has become the “home” platform for over 1000 projects in 150+ countries, helping to create a level playing field for everyone to access financial services.

Key mechanics of Celo blockchain

The overall concept of Celo is to provide users around the world with easy-to-use mobile cryptocurrency wallets that allow them to make payments, send and receive digital assets.

Celo blockchain runs on the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. In fact, Celo aims to create a synergy between two technologies – software-enabled mobile gadgets and DeFi financial applications – through the creation of DApps and smart contracts.

Also Celo, instead of complex addresses consisting of multiple characters, allows to link wallet IDs to cell phone numbers, making the process of sending and receiving funds as accessible and understandable as possible for users without deep knowledge of cryptocurrencies. This makes Celo especially attractive for developing countries, where a large part of the population does not have access to traditional banking services but widely used cell phones.

In addition to everything else, the CELO network operates with the support of three types of participants:

1. Light clients (mobile applications such as Celo Wallet)
2. Validator nodes
3. Full nodes

Validators maintain the state of the network and have a complete record of transactions. Full nodes retain a partial history, and primarily service requests and transactions from lightweight clients. Celo full node users earn CELs in exchange for their services. Light clients do not receive or store the full state of the blockchain. They simply make transactional requests.

Note another key mechanism in Celo. While smartphone ownership has become commonplace, hardware capabilities are lagging behind and data remains a valuable resource. That’s why Celo uses Plumo, a zk-SNARK-based system that allows you to check the state of the blockchain without having to verify previous transactions. This means low data transfer costs for synchronization across the network and the ability for lightweight clients to interact with the network with low computational and data requirements.

For a more convenient and efficient interaction with smart contracts and blockchain, Celo have integrated a CLI (Command Line Interface) for developers. This is a command-line interface that virtually eliminates the complexities of interaction that can arise when using programs such as JavaScript.

To ensure synchronization of the entire Celo network, the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) mechanism is responsible.

Advantages Celo

• Global reach and diverse applications
• Carbony-neutral
• Mobile approach
• Fast and convenient transactions
• Simplified transaction process
• Decentralized Finance Availability
• Community-driven governance
• Commitment to sustainability
• Interoperability and technical innovation

Token CELO

Celo has three proprietary stablecoins: Celo Dollars cUSD, Celo Euros cEUR, and Celo Reals cREAL. Mento, a Celo protocol, issues these stablecoins and allows users around the world to access these relatively stable paper currencies. Whether it’s remittances, savings, or general value transfers, Celo lightweight customers can access these pegged assets that track paper currencies.

Celo stablecoins have excessive collateralization and an elastic supply dependent on market demand. The mechanism of stablecoins is called DOTO (decentralized one-to-one). Assets can be minted by depositing CELO into the reserve and obtaining the desired stable asset.

Conclusion

As we can see, CELO strong team, focus on convenient mobile payments and emphasis on developing a regenerative economy are noteworthy. At the same time, as blockchains are becoming increasingly competitive, Celo is working to improve the mobile experience category by adding enhanced functionality and certain features.

Celo’s ecosystem is also targeting developing countries that require more technologically advanced payment solutions.