Celo is a pioneering ‘mobile-first’ blockchain specially designed for decentralized applications including decentralized finances protocols (DeFis). Its native cryptocurrency unit is named CELO. Like Ethereum, Celo structures include externally owned accounts (‘wallets’) and smart contracts.
Celo blockchain is fully EVM-compatible; even its CELO core utility and governance asset exists as both ERC-20 (Ethereum-based) asset and Celo’s native asset.
Celo’s architecture is built on the top of three key elements, i.e. Celo Blockchain open cryptographic protocol, Celo Core Contracts – instruments that include protocol logics, and in-protocol apps like Celo Wallet, Celo Core Contracts API and so on.
While initially introduced in 2017, Celo mainnet launched on Apr.22, 2020. In 2021, it raised additional funding from a number of top VCs including Andreessen Horowitz, Greenfield One, and Electric Capital. This round pushed the total raise over $65 million.
How does Celo process transactions?
Celo’s infrastructure includes three types of actors: validators, full nodes, and light clients. Validators index transactions from different nodes and execute smart contracts across Celo’s Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol. Thus, validators are responsible for advancing the state of the network. Celo’s Proof-of-Stake treats only a limited number of nodes as validators, to achieve a high level of attack-resistance.
Other elements of hardware equipment behind Celo blockchain should be referred to as ‘full nodes’. Like in the majority of PoS and DPoS blockchains, Celo full nodes store the full history of blockchain (transactions, accounts, and so on).
Celo’s ‘Light Clients’ can work on the majority of low-key devices: light clients interact with full nodes to request transaction data. Light clients don’t store the full history of the blockchain state.
Also, Celo’s ecosystem boasts three centralized services: Google Play app, Celo Wallet Notification Service and GraphSQL-powered Celo Wallet Blockchain API.
Which applications are working on Celo?
As Celo blockchain is laser-focused on the ‘mobile-first’ approach, its contracts are particularly attractive for all sorts of decentralized applications. To ease the process of dApps on-boarding, Celo team released CeloContractKit library, Celo DAppKit set of low-code instruments and ‘Local Development Chain’ tutorial for blockchain engineers. ‘Celo for Ethereum Developers’ module is designed to facilitate the migration of dApps to Celo from Ethereum.
According to the DeFiLlama dashboard, 8 active decentralized finances (DeFi) applications are up and running on the Celo blockchain. Mento is the largest one with $632 million in TVL by Q4, 2021. Ubeswap, Moola Market, Mobius Money and Allbridge have accomplished eight-digit TVL levels.
Besides that, Celo hosts the versions of PoolTogether and SushiSwap multi-blockchain DeFis. CeloVote, LoveCrypto and Tradegen represent the most interesting dApps outside of the DeFi segment.
Which assets and instruments are included in the Celo ecosystem?
Celo (CELO) is a core native utility and governance asset of Celo platform while Celo Dollar (cUSD) and Celo Euro (cEUR) are its largest stablecoins pegged to the U.S. Dollar and Euro respectively.
All transaction fees In Celo ecosystem are paid in stablecoins that is another ‘killing feature’ of its tokenomic design.
