TM Rating: 82% I
Review Date: April 4th, 2022
Celo is a mobile-first blockchain that makes decentralized financial (DeFi) tools and services accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. It aims to break down barriers by bringing the powerful benefits of DeFi to the users of the 6 billion smartphones in circulation today. It also enables native and non-native digital assets–both cryptographic and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)–to circulate freely across devices, carriers, and countries.
An Ethereum-compatible technology capable of reaching global users at scale, Celo turns crypto into usable money with a multi-asset system: a governance and staking asset (CELO) and a family of stablecoins. The network saw its launch of Mainnet in 2020 and slowly grew its ecosystem while being less popular than other Layer 1 networks.
The ultralight client is a zk-SNARK-based system that allows mobile and resource-constrained nodes on the network to sync to the blockchain faster and with fewer data. It accomplishes this by using zero-knowledge proofs, which allow the quick verification of the chain syncing computation without having to run it locally. Celo uses a novel Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol in addition to its efficient light client.
As multi-chain has become a main thing in the web3 ecosystem, interoperability is now a must and the Optics standard will allow Celo to facilitate transactions between other smart contract enabled layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, and Near, meaning the ecosystem of developers can connect the people, services, and technologies that allow everyone to benefit from a more open and connected blockchain ecosystem.
