# L1 CELO Celo By [moonduck15](https://paragraph.com/@moonduck15) · 2022-02-04 --- A cheat sheet to illustrate details on [Investors checklist for Blockchains](https://themoonduck-15.medium.com/investors-checklist-for-blockchain-47c14569c263) . Data or stats are not authoritative and picked from scans of tweets, discord , telegram reddit etc 2021 Q4 and some references are provided. In case of any misses do let me know and I will update. _These notes are more on under-the-hood engineering look. A separate article will cover the business development viewpoint_ _I use the trading ticker rather then name and for example for Axie Infinity blockchain game $AXS implies the coin or token and AXS implies the foundation/DAO/founders as appropriate_ **Status : DRAFT** * Basics * Price Action * Stats and Links * Highlight Pro and Con * Technology * Apps Ecosystem * Funds and Promotions * Readings Basics ------ Started 2017 [CELO ($CELO)](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/celo)( with three co-founders of Celo are Sep Kamvar, Rene Reinsberg, and Marek Olszewski. The three share the responsibility of running the project through [cLabs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/celo-labs/). Team comprised of people from MIT, Stanford, Google, Square, Circle, Visa, GoDaddy, World Bank, Federal Reserve Bank, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Cambridge University, U.S. Department of Justice, Bank Of America, Capital One, Twitter, Give Directly, and the Gates Foundation. Velora spun out of cLabs is a mobile peer-to-peer payments and remittance app built on the Celo platform. CELO is a mobile first payments oriented POS block chain that has morphed to a smart contract block chain with full EVM compatibility.  As explained by  Dr. Markus Franke, Celo’s head of European operations in a video interview: ![Video Interview ](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/87adba96dd8bf39355f77424222086f89d496f0d6dba9f17302a0ddb72008e6a.png) Video Interview Mainnet was launched in April 2020.  CELO maps phone keys to addresses on chain and permits smartphone users to remit crypto typically its  range of stable coin  Celo Dollar (CUSD), the Celo Euro (CEUR) and the Celo Brazilian Real (CREAL). Celo uses a hybrid algo with $CELO  and collateralized reserves of $BTC, $ETH, $DAI etc  for its range of stable coins.  See Messari report on [real world DeFi](https://messari.io/article/celo-a-stablecoin-ecosystem-for-the-real-world-defi) ![Stable coin Mobile payments](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/cc72e48ce602d819896047d1df56f33ec3de658f2cb661196fd6c698bd98474c.png) Stable coin Mobile payments 1,000 tps claimed, till Dec 2021 80 Mill+ Transactions, 5 sec TTF Price Action ------------ 486% Return from 2021 low to high. 1.4666USD (Jan 1) - 4.934USD(Dec 31) for 236.45% return in 2021 ![Snapshot Jan 19 2022](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/723227887e8e87ec32cde7cffe5340dccda2c59dab52a9badbb6c0a268ab2a84.png) Snapshot Jan 19 2022 9.1936 USD (Jan 1 ) - 26.8050 USD (Dec 31) for 191.56% returns in 2021 ### Stats and Links [Community Stats](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/celo#social): 127K+ Twitter, 7K+ Telegram, 3.5K+ Reddit Links [Blog](https://medium.com/celoOrg) [GitHub](https://github.com/celo-org/celo-monorepo) [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CeloOrg) [Forum](https://forum.celo.org/) [YouTube](https://youtube.com/channel/UCCZgos_YAJSXm5QX5D5Wkcw) [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/celo/) [Telegram](https://t.me/celoplatform) [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/celoorg/) [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/celoorg) ### Highlight Pro and Con * Lite client Smartphone as a Block chain participant * Privacy preserving phone number to address mapping * Payment channels with large onboarding * EVM compatible * **DeFi for the masses theme**. Partnership with many DeFI apps. * small developer community and apps ecosystem Technology ---------- CELO uses POS with Istanbul  Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus algorithm derived from [golang -Ethereum](https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum) version  where a defined set of validator nodes( 110 selected per epoch [thru staked tokens](https://medium.com/celoorg/celos-proof-of-stake-mechanism-31061fbebea))  are used to reach agreement on the validity of transactions posted to the network. Lite nodes ( smartphones) forward to full nodes ( incentivized by share of gas fees) . CELO uses GO implementation of Ethereum. Celo depends on validators as full nodes and casual light clients on smart phones. Full nodes  act as a bridge between the mobile wallets (running as light clients) and the validator nodes. When a light client sends transactions, they may include a gateway fee to be paid to the node that gossips transactions to the other full nodes and validators. Lite nodes the phone only needs to obtain headers of a few blocks to 'sync' with the chain and transact. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/9229205dc54bb68daeba652cc1b0681ae9eaf97a7d39e16c03d2ac5c5d06a055.png) Celo supports a lightweight identity protocol that makes it easy to prove that you have access to a mobile number through a decentralized method of sending SMS and it maintains that mapping [securely and privately](https://docs.celo.org/celo-codebase/protocol/identity/phone-number-privacy) with validators incentivized to attest the mapping of one or more phone number to a address . This means that you can use that mapping to send and receive payments to users just using their phone number. ![https://docs.celo.org/validator-guide/attestation-service](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6101941baf56573fbbecd784a19f4bf52ae12c1a2477797ba6ea6b9e35096b02.jpg) https://docs.celo.org/validator-guide/attestation-service This allows Dapp developers to build elegant, user-friendly experiences on mobile with users only needing a phone number to create and login to their wallets. Dapp users pay transaction fees <$0.01 using Celo’s native token. With [on-chain governance](https://docs.celo.org/celo-codebase/protocol/governance), Celo Gold holders can vote and decide on protocol propositions. 1 billion $CELO are planned with 600 M issued to cLABS, CELO Foundation, team, advisors,others   and balance 400 M in staged rewards Apps Ecosystem -------------- More than 155 projects are building on Celo. [Dapps](https://defillama.com/chain/Celo) like  Sushiswap,Symmetric, Moola Market, and Mobius Money. [Infographic from Coin98](https://twitter.com/Coin98Analytics/status/1482406337367900162?s=20) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/71b021f56bc3b4d6ebb7007f03e7b4bfbaaec06d9f321f021adfb32e5ecb7794.jpg) ### Sentiments ### Funding Celo has raised 77 M$ with Naval Ravikant advisor Airbnb, Pinterest, Stripe,Gitlab;  Jack Dorsey (ex Twitter CEO)  , Reid Hoffman ,lad Gil (  YouTuber ) and  Polychain , Coinbase Ventures , Andreessen Horowitz, Greenfield One, and Electric Capital etc **Promotions** Celo,  means ‘purpose’ in Esperanto and cLABS focus is to solve real-world problems such as lack of access to sound currency, or friction for cash-transfer programs aimed to alleviate poverty. [CeloStarter](https://twitter.com/CeloStarter) : a decentralized fundraising community, incubator, and launchpad, [Celo Community Fund](https://twitter.com/CeloCmtyFund) : launched in 2021,[Celo Ecosystem Venture Fund](https://celo.org/community) : a Polychain-led venture, Celo Foundation Grants Program : has supported in many countries esp undeveloped, [DeFi Alliance Ecosystem Partnership Program](https://twitter.com/defialliance/status/1418581630726328323) : announced in July 2021, provides mentorship and other specific resources. ### Readings [Banking the Unbanked: Celo Overview](https://medium.com/momentum6/banking-the-unbanked-celo-overview-f7fb17cc758e) [impactMarket Joins Celo’s DeFi for the People Initiative](https://medium.com/celoorg/impactmarket-joins-celos-defi-for-the-people-initiative-f172b690ea24) [![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU80SLdD17Q) --- *Originally published on [moonduck15](https://paragraph.com/@moonduck15/l1-celo-celo)*