Introduction
Celo is a blockchain platform that aims to make financial tools accessible to everyone in a user-friendly way. The goal is for financial activity to be accessible to anyone globally thanks to its ability for payments to be sent to and from any phone number in the world. With over 1000 community projects across 150 countries, 11 million unique users, and over 230 million transactions, Celo has been established as one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in web3.
Celo uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm called Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) for its governance, which is an algorithm that is designed to be fault-tolerant as transactions continue and reach a consensus even in the presence of faulty nodes or malicious actors. This consensus process is run by a maximum of 110 selected validator nodes, and this set is updated daily.
Celo is designed to be mobile-first, making it accessible to anyone with a smartphone. This is a unique feature of Celo that sets it apart from other blockchain platforms. It enables users to send and receive transactions
Central to run the operations on its blockchain. Celo operates two native tokens: CELO, a governance asset for voting on changes to the protocol and a family of stablecoins mirroring the value of the fiat currency they are pegged to. These stablecoins are named after the currencies they follow. Celo Dollars (cUSD), Celo Euros (cEUR), and Celo Reals (cREAL) are Mento stablecoins that allow you to share value faster, cheaper, and more easily on your mobile phone.
These and many other uniqueness have made Celo blockchain a favorable platform to build on. This post will be mentioning some of the many projects already making waves on this platform;
- Valora
Valora launched on March 23, 2021, is a mobile wallet and payment app built on the Celo blockchain network. It allows users to send and receive payments in the Celo Dollar stablecoin (cUSD) and the Celo cryptocurrency (CELO). Valora aims to make financial services more accessible to people around the world, particularly those who are unbanked or underbanked.
Valora also offers features such as the ability to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies, earn rewards for participating in the Celo network, and access decentralized finance (DeFi) applications built on Celo.
Overall, Valora is part of the broader Celo ecosystem, which aims to create a more inclusive and equitable financial system using blockchain technology.
- Ubeswap
Ubeswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Celo blockchain. It enables users to trade various cryptocurrencies, including cUSD, CELO (Celo’s native token), and other ERC-20 tokens. Ubeswap uses an automated market maker (AMM) model, where liquidity is provided by users rather than centralized order books.
- Moola Market
Moola Market is a non-custodial liquidity protocol that is democratizing access to yield and credit. Moola Market is an open-source project with publicly available code on GitHub. Governance on the platform’s development and operations is by its users through a decentralized voting process.
Depositors earn compound interest which is paid for by borrowers who take over-collateralized loans, delegated loans, or flash loans.
- cLabs
cLabs, founded in 2017, is the team behind the Celo blockchain. They are focused on building and improving the Celo ecosystem by developing core infrastructure, tools, and applications.
They are responsible for prominent projects such as Valora and Moola Market amongst others.
- HaloFi
HaloFi, formerly known as GoodGhosting, is one of the Celo community’s favorite DeFi apps - not only mobile friendly and easy to use, but also providing real-world utility of helping people achieve financial goals in a playful way.
Halofi’s mission is to help you build wealth through gamification and decentralized finance (DeFi).
- Mobius
Mobius is a cross-chain stable swap exchange built on Celo. Mobius is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) that specializes in low-slippage swaps between price-stable and interest-bearing pairs, such as liquid staking tokens.
The protocol ensures more capital-efficient trades between similarly priced pairs than that of a pure constant product invariant AMM like Ubeswap.
- Symmetric
Symmetric is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) and a Decentralized Exchange (DEX), running on the Celo and Gnosis networks. Symmetric’s roadmap includes further development of use cases (such as a launchpad, crypto index funds, crypto ETFs & ESG funds) and support for more networks in the future
Symmetric removes barriers to entry by making DeFi accessible to everyone through low fees, great customer support and a Unique Risk Fund that increases safety, bringing Defi to the people regardless of the size of their portfolio or technical knowledge.
- ReSource
ReSource is a decentralized protocol for mutual credit and multilateral exchange, enabling individuals, businesses, and entire networks to access credit without the need for capital or interest payments.
The resource aims to automate risk management, user acquisition, and currency stabilization and get your project on par with traditional financial products.
- ValuesCo
Values was created out of the desire to inspire actions that have true value for both people and the planet, redefining economics to create a better world using web3 with the major focus being the regeneration of the planet, human connection, emergent strategy, and grassroots empowerment.
- ImpactMarket
ImpactMarket s a decentralized human empowerment protocol that has one of the world’s biggest blockchain-driven UBI (Unconditional Basic Income) programs supporting over 46,000 people in almost 30 countries. Her core values are transparency, reliability, and inclusion, enabling financial independence and literacy for all. To make all these possible, ImpactMarket built Libera, which is a crypto wallet that is easy to use, secure, lightweight, and with low fees.
ImpactMarket provides accessible financial solutions and knowledge to empower underprivileged people all over the world.
- Kotani Pay
Kotani Pay is Africa’s most reliable blockchain off-ramp service enabling you to connect your Dapp, wallet, or blockchain network to local payment channels across the continent.
Kotani pay provides various APIs for lending, saving, remittance, and cash transfer APIs for work platforms — Gig work, amongst others.
- GoodDollar
GoodDollar is a protocol that makes crypto accessible and useful to anyone who wants it by creating free money as a public good by distributing free tokens called G$ every day to registered members as UBI (universal basic income).
GoodDollar’s vision is a world where everyone has access to basic economic assets and financial products that are inclusive by design.
Future Potentials:
Going forward, Celo’s mission to create the conditions for prosperity for everyone, coupled with very early successes recorded, will doubtless be a game-winner for the platform. Emphasis on the need to make crypto products easy to use and mobile friendly as well as its role in social impact and broad partner network, sets Celo apart from competitors.
cLabs’ vision for Celo’s next chapter is to be the best platform on which to launch and scale any Web3 project that furthers the regenerative economy. With the roadmap being:
- Deep alignment with the Ethereum Roadmap
- Horizontal scalability by making Celo an incredibly rollup-friendly chain
- Making Celo the fastest EVM L1
- Refining CELO tokenomics and rewarding contributors
- Providing a top-tier developer experience
- Powerful building blocks for wallets and applications
With these and many other innovations, Celo has established her platform as the place to build.
Conclusion
With this post, I believe developers, investors, philanthropists and end users can be inspired to become a part of Celo’s ever-growing ecosystem.
Through our exploration of some of the top projects on Celo, we have seen how they are utilizing features such as stablecoins, smart contracts, and decentralized identity to create efficient, transparent, and accessible financial systems while making social impact. These projects have the potential to transform traditional finance and enable greater financial inclusion for underserved communities.
As Celo continues to evolve and attract more developers and users, it will be exciting to see how these top projects on the platform will continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with blockchain technology.
Next Steps
- Celo: Building a Regenerative Economy
- Collaboration with MysteLab
- CommunityFund
- SocialConnect
- Mento | Sustainable stable asset protocol
About the Author
I am Dr Emiri Udogwu, a young Nigerian medical doctor who is passionate about blockchain technologies and tech generally. A solidity programmer, product manager, and content creator.
Connect with me on Twitter or Linkedin