What Is Celo?

Celo is a blockchain network focused on making cryptocurrency usable on mobile phones for global payments. Its standout features include mapping phone numbers to wallet addresses, paying transaction fees in stablecoins instead of the native gas token, and a suite of native stablecoins pegged to major fiat currencies. Celo has positioned itself as a regenerative finance and real-world payments chain, with a large base of users in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

Overview - Table of Contents
What Is Celo?
Getting Started With Celo
How To Get A Celo Wallet?
Celo Resources
How To Buy Celo?
Latest Celo News

Celo was founded in 2017 by Rene Reinsberg and Marek Olszewski, both veterans of GoDaddy and Locu, along with Sep Kamvar. The project launched mainnet in April 2020 and is developed by cLabs, with the Celo Foundation supporting ecosystem growth. The platform was originally inspired by the work that became Diem (Facebook's discontinued stablecoin project), with a stronger focus on permissionless access for emerging-market users.

Until 2025, Celo operated as a standalone Ethereum-compatible layer-1 with its own proof-of-stake validators. In March 2025, Celo completed its transition to becoming an Ethereum layer-2 built using Optimism's OP Stack. Celo now settles to Ethereum mainnet while keeping its Celo-specific features such as fee abstraction in multiple tokens, phone-number-based identity, and native stablecoins.

The Celo network supports a family of native stablecoins, including cUSD (Celo Dollar), cEUR (Celo Euro), and cREAL (Celo Real), pegged to USD, EUR, and Brazilian real respectively. These stablecoins were originally backed by an on-chain reserve including CELO, BTC, ETH, and other assets managed by the Celo Reserve. Mento Labs, a Celo Foundation spinout, now runs the Mento stablecoin protocol that issues and manages this family of currencies.

CELO is the native token of the network. It is used for governance, staking by validators (under the legacy L1) and validator-like roles under the new L2, paying gas (alongside stablecoins via fee abstraction), and collateralizing parts of the Mento reserve. CELO had a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, with allocations to early backers, the Celo Foundation, validators, and community grants.

Celo's application ecosystem includes consumer wallets like Valora and Opera MiniPay, lending and yield protocols, climate-focused regenerative finance (ReFi) projects such as Toucan and Regen Network bridges, and a growing roster of remittance and merchant payment apps. Opera's MiniPay integration in particular has brought millions of African users onto Celo with simple stablecoin payments tied to phone numbers.

The L2 transition is intended to align Celo with Ethereum's security and liquidity while preserving the consumer-payments features that made the chain distinctive. Bridges, dApps, and tooling have been migrating throughout the transition, with the Celo Foundation publishing migration guides for projects and users.

Getting Started With Celo

Celo is designed to feel like a mobile money app first and a blockchain second:

Step 1: Install a mobile wallet such as Valora or Opera MiniPay, or a multi-chain wallet like MetaMask configured for Celo.
Step 2: Acquire CELO or cUSD on a supported exchange, or buy directly in MiniPay via fiat on-ramps where available.
Step 3: Send funds by phone number through Valora or MiniPay, or interact with Celo dApps via your wallet.
Step 4: To build on Celo, use the Celo developer documentation and any standard Ethereum tooling (Hardhat, Foundry, Viem) targeting the Celo L2 network.

How to Get a Celo Wallet?

Multiple wallets support Celo and its stablecoins:

Valora

Valora is a mobile-first Celo wallet originally built by cLabs. After operating as an independent company from 2021, the Valora team was acquired by Stripe in late 2025, and the app has returned to cLabs for ongoing development. It supports sending payments by phone number, holding cUSD and cEUR, and connecting to Celo dApps via WalletConnect.

Opera MiniPay

MiniPay is a stablecoin wallet built into Opera's mobile browser, designed for African users. It uses Celo as its underlying chain and lets users send and receive cUSD by phone number with minimal fees.

MetaMask and Other EVM Wallets

Because Celo is EVM-compatible, MetaMask, Rabby, and similar wallets can be configured to connect to Celo and interact with Celo dApps.

Hardware Wallets

Ledger devices support Celo through their Ethereum app, which can be used with MetaMask or compatible wallets pointed at the Celo network.

Celo Resources

How to Buy Celo?

CELO is widely listed on centralized and decentralized venues:

Centralized Exchanges

CELO trades on Coinbase, Binance (regional availability varies), Kraken, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, Bitget, and Gate. cUSD and cEUR are also available on several exchanges and via fiat on-ramps integrated with Valora and MiniPay.

Decentralized Exchanges

On Celo itself, CELO and stablecoins trade on Uniswap (deployed to Celo), Ubeswap, and Mento (for stablecoin minting and swaps). Bridges connect Celo to Ethereum, Polygon, and other ecosystems.

After buying, CELO can be held in any compatible wallet, used to pay fees, or participated in network roles. Stablecoins are commonly used for payments, savings, and remittances.

Latest Celo News

The most consequential recent event for Celo is the completion of its transition from a standalone layer-1 to an Ethereum layer-2 in March 2025. The migration aligned Celo with Ethereum's security and liquidity while preserving fee abstraction, phone-number identity, and native stablecoins.

On the application side, Opera MiniPay has continued to scale stablecoin payments to a large user base in Africa, and the Mento protocol has expanded the family of fiat-pegged stablecoins available on Celo. Follow the Celo blog, the Celo Foundation, and cLabs channels for protocol and ecosystem updates.