Celo ecosystem – The first development step for a big vision

Get an overview of the Celo ecosystem with each piece and project inside, along with a projection of the development of this fledgling ecosystem!

Developed with a vision to make financial instruments borderless, easy to use and accessible to everyone.

Celo has achieved certain successes and has taken next steps with the goal of “DeFi for the people” to build a private ecosystem on its platform.

Overview of the Celo ecosystem

Basic information about Celo

Celo is a Blockchain built with the PoS (Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism and compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM Compatible), allowing Dapps built on the Ethereum platform to be easily deployed on Celo.

The special feature of Celo compared to other EVM Compatible Blockchains such as BSC, Polygon, Heco, etc. lies in the fact that this is the first Mobile-blockchain project on the market.

Specifically about Mobile-blockchain:

• The Celo protocol provides incentives for running full nodes on each mobile device. Unlike other Proof-of-Stake systems.
• Users can still earn coins or tokens by providing computing resources (computing power) without needing to stake other Crypto assets.
• In addition, with the vision of being a Mobile-blockchain, Celo will provide solutions to help users experience DeFi in the simplest way with just their mobile devices.

Some of Celo’s highlights include:

• Supports many different currencies for payment needs.
• Account linked to phone number.
• Multiple options for paying transaction fees (transaction fees can be paid in CELO, CUSD, CEUR, etc.).
• Sync instantly even on slow connections.

General vision of Celo

The platform is built with the aim of helping anyone with a mobile phone to access financial instruments such as payment, savings, investment, etc. through Blockchain technology.

You can read the Recap article about the AMA session between the Coin98 community and Celo’s representative – Evan Kereiakes to better understand the vision that the Celo team is aiming.

In short, you can imagine an overview of the Celo ecosystem that will be built as follows:

• Starting with the platform is Blockchain Celo with the ability to develop products on it.
• Next, because Celo’s team’s solution is aimed at helping people access financial services with just a Smartphone.
  So the center of the Celo ecosystem will be Mobile Wallet.
• Eventually financial services platforms will be built and integrated directly into Mobile Wallet.

An ecosystem with a central product, Mobile Wallet

Backers

Celo owns a pretty powerful backers

Celo owns a strong team of developers and Backers, including some very famous names in the market such as a16z, Coinbase Venture, Polychain Capital, Jack Dorsey

DeFi Incentive Program

Recently, the Celo development team launched a program to promote DeFi development on its ecosystem with a budget of up to $100M.

Celo’s $100M Incentive Program

The members promoting this project include: Aave, Curve, SushiSwap, 0x, UMA, Valora, Ubeswap and Moola Market…

Specifically, Pool Together has supported the Celo network and offered a reward level of up to $500,000.

AAVE, one of the largest Lending platforms in the DeFi market, has also committed $20M worth of tokens to AAVE users through Celo’s mobile platform.

In addition, SushiSwap and Curve also have plans to deploy on Celo with Incentives up to $10M and $14M respectively.

Fragments of the ecosystem

Wallet

As a key player in the ecosystem, the current Wallet puzzle piece is still quite sketchy and has not been completed to realize the initial vision of the development team.

Currently, the ecosystem owns the following prominent Celo-native wallets:

• Valora: Mobile Wallet with the ability to allow users to make payments and transfer money with their phone numbers. However, the wallet has not been officially implemented yet.
• CeloWallet.app: A desktop-based wallet with many features such as payments, exchange, staking and governance.
• CeloExtensionWallet: Metamask fork for Celo Network.
• Steakwallet: The main focus on Staking features and multi-chain support.

You can also use other wallet platforms that support the Celo network such as Metamask, Coin98 Wallet, Dove Wallet, Pesabase, etc.

Payment

The Payment puzzle in the Celo ecosystem will revolve around Celo Dollars (CUSD) and Celo Euro (CEUR).

This is also the main stablecoin of the Celo ecosystem with a mint/burn mechanism quite similar to Terra’s UST. To better understand this mechanism, you can refer to Terra’s operating model.

Therefore, when the demand for CUSD and CEUR as a means of payment increases, the demand for CELO will increase, causing the ecosystem to grow.

To stimulate demand for CUSD and CEUR, the Celo team launched the Alliance for Prosperity program, which partners with organizations to utilize Celo’s solutions across multiple sectors.

Up to now, the program has attracted more than 100 members with many integrated applications such as salary payment, bill payment, payment of some support services, etc.

DeFi

Celo is only taking the first steps to building a DeFi ecosystem on its platform, so the pieces are still pretty sparse in general.

Infrastructure

• Chainlink: The largest data platform in the Crypto market today.
• 0x: Infrastructure that allows building DEX on Blockchain.
• The Graph: Query data from the Blockchain.
• RabbitHole: A platform to support projects that attract users to test their products.

Bridge:

• Wrapped.com: A platform that issues Wrapped tokens with the aim of increasing interoperability between Blockchains.
• Optics: The Cross-chain Bridge solution connects liquidity from many other ecosystems to Celo.

DEX:

• Ubeswap: AMM native on Celo.
• Mobius: Cross-chain Stableswap in the Celo ecosystem.
• SushiSwap: The largest multi-chain AMM on the market right now.
• Curve Finance: A very famous AMM focusing on Stableswap segment.

Lending & Borrowing:

• Moola Market: The first Lending & Borrowing protocol on Celo.
• AAVE: One of the biggest Lending platforms on the market right now with a commitment to expanding and supporting the Celo ecosystem.
• Mother Protocol: Lending protocol develops in a Community-driven trend.

Yield Aggregator:

• Dahlia Finance: Yield Aggregator platform with Leverage Yield Farming feature.

Asset Management:

• Good Ghosting: A wealth management platform focused on Saving and Gamification.
• KnoxEdge Market: A Community-driven platform where users can learn and invest.

Synthetic Assets:

• Kresko: Synthetic Assets platform native on Celo.

Launchpad:

• Celo Starter: Launchpad on the Celo ecosystem (not much information about the project yet).

Gaming/NFT:

• Lapis: NFT gaming trending Play to earn.
• Unifty: Multi-chain NFT Marketplace.

Others:

• ChurroFi: Simplify Celo Staking.
• rCelo Studio: Liquid Staking.
• Saving Celo: Staking Derivatives platform with the same model as Lido DAO.
• Poof.cash: Privacy.
• Nomspace: Name Service.
• Anchorage: A platform that helps organizations protect and solve technical problems with Crypto Assets.

Currently, in addition to Ubeswap and Moola Market, Celo-native projects have not been implemented yet because the infrastructure and platforms on Celo are quite simple.

Projections for the Celo ecosystem

Current issues

With the goal and market approach of the Celo team, it is very important to develop a Mobile Wallet with full features (such as transferring money via phone numbers, integrating financial services, etc.).

To give you a better idea, the Flywheel of the Celo ecosystem will be designed as follows:

• Celo’s special competitive advantage and positioning is to build a Mobile-blockchain, so the Mobile Wallet product will take the central position and be the bridge to attract users into the ecosystem.
• Convenient features such as being able to send money by phone number, integrating many utilities in the wallet, etc. will attract many users.
• This will increase the demand for Payment, financial services or DeFi.
• The design of CUSD, CEUR as the main stablecoin of the system, along with the above needs, will increase the demand for Stablecoins.
• Designing the same operating model as Terra will make the price of CELO and the transaction volume in the system grow, leading to the development of the entire ecosystem.

Flywheel of Celo Ecosystem

Therefore, if the Mobile Wallet product is not perfected but has accelerated the development of DeFi, it will lead to Celo not having a competitive advantage, especially compared to other EVM Compatible Blockchains such as BSC, Polygon, …

As I mentioned above, no native wallet product on Celo has all the features as in the vision of the development team.

Therefore, the problem of Wallet must be fixed first, then the DeFi Incentive program should be promoted to attract liquidity and develop DeFi on Celo.

Some conditions for the growth of the Celo ecosystem

Some points you need to pay attention to when monitoring the Celo system are as follows:

• Mobile Wallet product: The completion of a full-featured wallet product will be a very solid foundation for sustainable growth in the future.
• Alliance for Prosperity Program: Because this is a strategic program of Celo to attract more organizations to use its solution. This will increase the demand for CUSD and CEUR leading to an increase in the price of CELO. Therefore, you need to monitor the growth rate in the number and scale of Celo usage by Partners.
• Make good use of the DeFi Incentive Program: If developers make good use of this program to create unique products, and design true to the vision of the Celo team, then this is also an opportunity. for Celo to create a competitive advantage with many other ecosystems on the market today.

In addition, you also need to pay attention to some important data below:

• TVL of the system: Regarding the TVL of the ecosystem and each protocol, you can follow it at DeFi Llama.
• Marketcap of CUSD and CEUR: If the capitalization of these 2 stablecoins shows signs of growth, it proves the real demand for Celo’s core product and indicates the inflow of money into the ecosystem.

Investment opportunities in the Celo ecosystem

Currently, the Celo ecosystem is still quite young, products and projects have not attracted much attention from the community.

The proof lies in the fact that CELO coin has not yet reached a market cap of $1B, and major stablecoins such as CUSD and CEUR have only reached a market capitalization of several tens of millions of dollars.

This shows that the products of the Celo ecosystem have not been widely used nor have high applicability.

But this is also an opportunity to become early investors in this system. You can read articles about Money Flow to understand how money moves in the market:

• Cash flow in macro
• Cash flow in micro

Specific opportunities can be mentioned as:

• CELO: As a Layer 1 platform coin, it will receive the first cash flow before flowing through the next layers. In addition, with the $100M DeFi Incentive Program, that will be the reason why the cash flow can flow to Celo in the near future (you can refer to case studies like Fantom, Avalanche or Polygon).
• UbeSwap: The first native AMM in the system. With being the First Mover in the system, it is likely that this will be the destination of cash flow when Celo resonates in the market.
• Moola Market: Also a very important piece in the ecosystem and the First Mover in the system.
• Dahlia Finance: Although it has not been officially deployed, this is also a Case Study you should note. Because when there are AMM and Lending projects, there will be a demand for Yield Farming.

And there will be many other opportunities in the deeper layers of the system if Celo really resonates and attracts money in the market.

Summary

Celo is currently being traded on exchanges: Binance, Kucoin, Gate.

In general, Celo is still a very new ecosystem and there are still many holes in the development process.

However, with a strong team of developers and Backers, we still have certain bases to bet on this ecosystem.

In addition, with the move to spend very heavily (up to $100M) for DeFi development on Celo, it can be seen that the determination of the development team in attracting more users as well as creating a certain position in the market can be seen market.