On July 7, the Celo Foundation announced the launch of its second-layer testnet Dango, a move that marks Celo’s deep integration with the Ethereum ecosystem and its grand vision for the future of fintech. Driven by cLabs, Dango is not only a technological upgrade, but also a major innovation in the global payment system.
It is reported that Celo was founded by a team with rich backgrounds, including industry veterans such as Rene Reinsberg and Marek Olszewski. Team members come from well-known companies such as Google, Coinbase and ConsenSys. Since 2017, Celo has been working to enable billions of smartphone users around the world to enjoy convenient cryptocurrency payments through its open financial system.
01. Building a mobile-first blockchain platform for global financial inclusion
Celo is a blockchain platform designed for mobile devices, dedicated to providing convenient and global financial services. It is known for its unique lightweight identity protocol and stability protocol, aiming to achieve a key goal: to make financial decentralized applications (DApps) and cryptocurrency payment systems easily accessible to everyone with a smartphone.
The Celo ecosystem includes a decentralized proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain technology stack, multiple native tokens, stablecoins, and a broad Celo Prosperity Alliance. The platform supports smart contracts and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling developers to seamlessly deploy smart contracts and build DApps.
Compared with Ethereum, Celo provides lower mining fees and faster transaction settlement speeds, greatly improving operational efficiency and user experience. It also maps users' phone numbers to public key addresses through an innovative address-based encryption technology, which means that users do not need to remember complex public keys to conduct transactions, but only need to use their phone numbers. This feature greatly reduces the threshold for new users to enter crypto financial services.
Celo’s operating mechanism is even more user-friendly, including light clients, full nodes, and verification nodes, which allows users to experience smooth cryptocurrency payments even in environments with small memory, weak computing power, or poor communication bandwidth. Light clients are particularly suitable for mobile users because they do not need to store a complete copy of the blockchain, but instead connect to a full node to process transactions and obtain necessary information.
At the same time, Celo has implemented a unique dual-token system, including stablecoins anchored to fiat currencies such as Celo Dollar (cUSD), Celo Euro (cEUR) and Celo Real (cREAL), as well as the platform's native token CELO. This dual-token structure is designed to maintain the anchoring of its stablecoins by adjusting the supply and demand of CELO tokens. In addition, Celo's stablecoin mechanism includes reserves, Mento algorithm, and over-collateralization to ensure that the stablecoin can quickly return to the anchor price when the value fluctuates.
02. Dango launches: a comprehensive exploration of a new payment experience
The Dango testnet was first proposed at EthCC in 2023, aiming to provide developers with a brand new platform that allows them to test and optimize their projects in an efficient and low-cost environment. It is built on Optimism's OP Stack, a technical framework known for its high scalability and excellent interoperability, providing solid support for Celo's first layer while enhancing the overall functionality of the network.
This update inherits and enhances many of Celo's existing advantages, such as supporting real-world payment solutions in more than 150 countries and regions, and greatly improving the scalability and efficiency of the network by bridging WETH and ERC-20 tokens between Ethereum and Celo. The new testnet also shortened the block time from 5 seconds to 2 seconds and increased the total throughput by 50%, ensuring that global users can enjoy a faster and lower-cost payment experience.
First, the token bridge function
Dango has particularly strengthened the bridging function between WETH and ERC-20 tokens, making asset transfers between Celo and Ethereum seamless and convenient, greatly enhancing the interoperability of the two blockchain ecosystems.
Second, block finality
Its 1-block finality ensures the speed and security of transactions, which is particularly important for global payments and can ensure that transactions are confirmed in a very short time.
Third, flexible use of CELO tokens
The dual nature of the CELO token enables developers to choose the interaction method that best suits their application, whether natively or through an ERC20 interface.
Finally, cost abstraction and SocialConnect integration
The fee abstraction introduced by Dango allows the use of multiple ERC-20 tokens to pay transaction fees, including Celo’s native tokens such as USDT and USDC, thereby reducing usage costs and increasing accessibility.
At the same time, by integrating the SocialConnect feature, Dango allows users to send funds directly to phone numbers, email addresses or social media identities, making the crypto transaction process more simplified and user-friendly.
summary
Celo’s continued development and expansion strategy has not only attracted widespread participation from users around the world, but has also received support from well-known investors and organizations in the field, including Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, and the non-profit organization GiveDirectly. Through these efforts, Celo is gradually realizing its vision to provide a more stable and inclusive financial ecosystem for users around the world.
The successful deployment of the Dango testnet is not only a reflection of technological progress, but also lays a solid foundation for the launch of the Celo second-layer mainnet planned for early winter 2024. It allows developers to conduct extensive application testing without affecting end-user services. As all key infrastructure providers upgrade their node code, the upgrade of the Alfajores testnet will not require a new fork, ensuring a seamless transition from testing to the mainnet.
With the completion of this milestone for Dango, the Celo community and global developers are looking forward to the broader application prospects that are about to come.
