Celo Developers Opt for OP Stack in Ethereum Transition

cLabs, the primary developer of the Celo L1 blockchain, has selected Optimism’s OP Stack for its migration to Ethereum’s second layer.

✨A very special 4th anniversary of Celo mainnet’s launch! cLabs Proposes Migrating Celo to an Ethereum L2 leveraging the OP Stack.

Join the discussion on the proposal in the @celo forum and community call (May 2)!https://t.co/fjpPgVP8kT pic.twitter.com/4RGVcFSIqi

— cLabs ◘ ?? (@cLabs) April 22, 2024

“Choosing OP Stack accelerates L2 deployment and allows Celo developers and its community to contribute to the Optimism ecosystem […] while benefiting from it,” states the proposal on the forum.

Founded in 2020, Celo initially aimed to create a user-friendly mobile Ethereum wallet. Over time, however, the platform evolved into an EVM-compatible layer one network. The announcement of choosing OP Stack coincided with the blockchain’s fourth anniversary.

According to the announcement, following a “unanimous” community decision to transform the protocol into a second-layer network, the project team tested several stacks, including Polygon CDK, Arbitrum Orbit, and ZK Stack.

The developers also implemented the Gingerbread hard fork in preparation for the transition.

“Much was considered: development time, alignment with Ethereum, and so on. Developing on OP Stack provides a clear path for deploying a second layer without compromising the needs of the Celo community,” the publication states.

The company emphasized that OP Stack supports the protocol’s core features:

• single-block finality;
• low fees;
• using ERC-20 tokens as gas fees;
• sending funds via phone number or email through the SocialConnect protocol;
• continuation of the Ultragreen Money eco-campaign.

The migration will also bring several technological improvements. Block creation time will decrease from five to two seconds, and throughput will increase by 50%. Celo will also enhance security by merging with Ethereum.

After discussions on the transition details on May 2, cLabs will present the proposal to adopt OP Stack for a community vote. The launch of the CEL2 testnet is tentatively planned for the summer.

In November 2023, Celo co-founder Marek Olszewski spoke about preparations to return to Ethereum. He noted that the increased performance of the second-largest blockchain by market capitalization is achieved through rollups, which he sees as an excellent opportunity for “returning home.”

In April 2023, Google Cloud and Celo agreed to collaborate to support blockchain infrastructure improvements and the development of decentralized applications.

In July 2022, developers deployed Uniswap v3 smart contracts on the network. The initiative aims to create liquidity pools for Celo’s “green assets,” such as tokenized carbon credits.