Celo is a mobile-first blockchain that makes decentralized financial (DeFi) tools and services accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. It aims to break down barriers by bringing the powerful benefits of DeFi to the users of the 6 billion smartphones in circulation today. Celo enables native and non-native digital assets–both cryptographic and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)–to circulate freely across devices, carriers, and countries. An Ethereum-compatible technology capable of reaching global users at scale, Celo turns crypto into usable money with a multi-asset system: a governance and staking asset (CELO) and a family of stablecoins. The network saw its launch of Mainnet in 2020, and slowly grew its ecosystem while being less popular than other Layer 1 networks.

The ultralight client is a zk-SNARK based system that allows mobile and resource constrained nodes on the Celo network to sync to the Celo blockchain faster and with less data. It accomplishes this by using zero-knowledge proofs, which allow the quick verification of the chain syncing computation without having to run it locally. Celo uses a novel Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol in addition to its efficient light client. As multi-chain has become a main thing in the web3 ecosystem, interoperability is now a must and the Optics standard will allow Celo to facilitate transactions between other smart contract enabled layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, and Near, meaning Celo’s ecosystem of developers can connect the people, services, and technologies that allow everyone to benefit from a more open and connected blockchain ecosystem.