From Vision to Impact: Powering Real-World Change in 2024, From Celo Foundation President Rene Reinsberg

As 2024 comes to a close, René Reinsberg, President of the Celo Foundation, reflects on the remarkable achievements of the Celo ecosystem. Despite market fluctuations, the team remains steadfast in their principles of "building for the real world" and "banking the unbanked." The year has seen significant advancements, including the widespread adoption of Celo's technology, with products like Opera MiniPay surpassing 4 million users, enabling easy sending of stable assets via text message. Celo has become the "Home of Stablecoins," supporting 13 stablecoins across seven currencies, driven by the popularity of Tether USDT and other local currencies. The ecosystem has also seen the launch of the Stabila Foundation, which aims to bootstrap onchain FX markets, and significant growth in onchain transactions, surpassing 500 million transactions and overtaking Ethereum in daily transaction count.

Key Achievements and Milestones

Stablecoin Activity: Celo surpassed Tron in stablecoin activity, with 13 stablecoins covering seven currencies, including USDT, USDC, and local currencies like the Kenyan Shilling and Brazilian Real.
Stabila Foundation: Launched via governance vote to bootstrap onchain FX markets, with Uniswap V3 and Carbon DeFi seeing significant trading volumes.
Onchain Transactions: Celo surpassed 500 million onchain transactions, overtook Ethereum in daily transaction count, and reached an all-time high for fees earned.
Ecosystem Growth: The Celo ecosystem has seen diverse use cases, including P2P payments, remittances, lending, prediction markets, and environmental solutions. The community has hosted events and formed regional DAOs, further strengthening the ecosystem.
Migration to Ethereum L2: Celo is migrating from an EVM-compatible L1 to an Ethereum L2, with the community voting to leverage Optimism’s OP Stack and the launch of testnets Dango and Alfajores.