OdysseyDAO | Companies of Web3

Our Take

Celo is an impressive blockchain that focuses on user experience and payments. It makes crypto simple and accessible for users on mobile devices. It is thoughtfully designed to be energy efficient. In a future where more and more users’ first interaction with blockchain will be on a mobile device, we believe Celo has a big opportunity to onboard many people to crypto across the world.

About Celo

Celo is a mobile-first blockchain along with a peer-to-peer payment infrastructure. It aims to give DeFi access to the 6 billion worldwide smartphones users. Celo is committed to building an inclusive financial system and ensuring environmental sustainability. Core feature of Celo include:

Accessibility: Celo makes sending and receiving crypto as simple as sending a text message by using a user’s mobile number rather than a 42 character public key.
Environmentally responsible: Using an energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and offsetting additional carbon makes Celo a carbon-negative blockchain.
Built for Payments: Celo has native stable currencies, which work better for payments than volatile crypto assets.

Syncing the latest state of blockchain is a resource-intensive task. To expand access to anyone with a mobile phone, Celo introduced an ultralight client - Plumo, which is capable of syncing the latest network state in just a few seconds even on a mobile phone.

“Our mission is to build a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity—for everyone.”

-Rene Reinsberg, founder of Celo.

Why build on Celo?

Using the Celo platform, developers can build easy-to-use decentralized applications (dApps) for people all around the world and have these dApps easily discoverable. Here are some reasons why Celo is ideal for developers:

Highly scalable: High TPS (transaction per second) with a robust and decentralized set of validators.
EVM compatible: Ethereum developers can easily deploy smart contracts on Celo without having to learn a new programming language.
Built-in stable currencies: Celo has native stable assets like USD (cUSD) and the Euro (cEUR) that are collateralized by crypto and natural assets.
Low transactions fees: Often less than one cent, enabling payments even for small amounts. Transaction fees (gas fees) can also be paid in stablecoins.

Immediate syncing: Transactions settle in 5 seconds.

Eco-conscious Blockchain

Celo was designed with environmentally sustainability at the forefront. The Proof-of-Stake (POS) consensus mechanism naturally requires a fraction of the energy usage of Proof-of-Work (POW) blockchains. Additionally, Celo offsets CO2 through Project Wren making the operational resources powering the Celo platform carbon-negative.

Celo is committed to regenerative finance through transitioning part of the Celo reserves to natural capital assets such as tokenized rainforest and other carbon sequestering assets. As stated in the Climate Collective, “By allocating a fraction of these assets to natural capital, the reserve can create an incentive mechanism that aligns demand for stablecoins with the protection of natural capital.”

Celo Ecosystem

Celo is open source and encourages the building of various applications to enrich user experience and onboard more people to the crypto space. Celo has built a bridge to Ethereum and Polygon chains to encourage cross-chain interoperability.

Celo Stablecoins. Celo has several stablecoins like Celo USD (cUSD), Celo EUR (cEUR) and Celo Real (cREAL) which are pegged to track the national fiat currencies and backed by Celo Reserves.
Celo Foundation. A mission-driven foundation responsible for education, community engagement, and ecosystem support of the Celo platform.
cLabs. cLabs started Celo and is one of many contributors to the open source project.
Valora. A self-custodial wallet on the Celo blockchain.
‍DeFi on Celo. Using various dApps (Ubeswap, Moola), users can explore DeFi opportunities on Celo: provide liquidity, earn rewards, lend or borrow crypto assets

Valora

Valora was launched in February 2021 as the first peer-to-peer payment app built on the Celo platform. Valora was inspired by the idea that sending money should be as easy as sending a text message.

What is Valora. Valora is a global payments app that allows you to exchange and securely store value on your mobile phone.
How to use Valora. To get started, download the Valora app. Create a Valora account and connect your mobile number. Set up your recovery phrase before funding your account. That's it!
What can you do with Valora wallet app? You can use Valora to send and receive money instantly to and from anyone around the world. You can also use Valora to pay for goods and services (where Valora payments are accepted), or to save and store your funds securely.

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