Layer 2 blockchain · settles to Ethereum
Celo ticker CELO
Summary
Ethereum Layer 2 on the OP Stack. A single sequencer orders transactions into 1-second blocks; batch data goes to EigenDA and only data-availability commitments are posted to Ethereum (L2BEAT reports a fallback to Ethereum if EigenDA is unavailable). State roots are proposed to Ethereum and secured by OP Succinct Lite, a zero-knowledge fault-proof system switched on by the Jello hardfork on 10 December 2025: whitelisted challengers can dispute a proposal during a 3.5-day window and a zero-knowledge proof settles the dispute. The Celo sequencer builds only on finalized Ethereum blocks. Block production uses no stake or work of its own; locked CELO now elects community RPC providers, not block producers. 156710111213
Design
- System
- Layer 2 blockchainCelo ran as its own proof-of-stake chain until block 31,056,500 on 26 March 2025, when mainnet (chain ID 42220) migrated in place to an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the OP Stack, carrying over its state and history. Transaction data is stored by EigenDA with only commitments on Ethereum, so L2BEAT classes Celo as an optimium rather than a rollup. CELO remains the gas token, and allowlisted ERC-20 tokens can also pay fees. The onboarding package listed Celo as a Layer 1; that described the chain before March 2025.
- Settles to
- EthereumState roots, data-availability commitments and bridge contracts live on Ethereum. Because the sequencer follows only finalized Ethereum blocks, deposits take at least two Ethereum epochs (about 12.8 minutes) to appear on Celo. Withdrawals to Ethereum wait out a 3.5-day challenge window according to L2BEAT.
- Settlement family
- Ethereum / EVM
- Scarce resource
- Other
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- One sequencer. Celo Core Co., the organization formed when cLabs and the Celo Foundation unified (its engineering team was formerly cLabs), lists running the sequencer, batcher and proposer nodes as its own work in its July 2026 roadmap. L2BEAT reports two whitelisted proposers and six whitelisted challengers (five independent, one run by cLabs), and says users can force transactions in through Ethereum with up to a 12-hour delay if the sequencer censors them.
- Fork choice
- No open fork choice on the Layer 2: the canonical chain is derived from batch data on EigenDA and commitments on Ethereum, and the sequencer stalls rather than build on unfinalized Ethereum blocks. Disputed state roots are settled by onchain dispute games using zero-knowledge proofs. A 2-of-2 of a cLabs 6-of-8 multisig and a community 6-of-8 Security Council can upgrade the Ethereum contracts; L2BEAT reports no upgrade delay.
Qualifications
- Scarce resource · Not applicable. Since March 2025 Celo block production uses no stake or work of its own; the sequencer is operator-assigned and security comes from Ethereum settlement plus the proof system. Locked CELO elects community RPC providers, who do not produce blocks.
- Finality · Partial. Celo documents three levels: unsafe blocks shared by the sequencer (reorgable without penalty), safe blocks derived from data on not-yet-finalized Ethereum blocks, and finalized blocks derived from finalized Ethereum blocks. Only the last inherits Ethereum's reorg resistance.
- Data availability · Contested. Celo's docs call the chain an OP Stack rollup, but transaction data is stored by EigenDA operators with only commitments on Ethereum, and L2BEAT classes Celo as an optimium. Do not assume Ethereum-level data availability.
- Fast confirmations · Unknown. Celo is integrating Espresso for fast confirmations; its July 2026 roadmap expected a testnet launch in the third quarter with mainnet after validation. Mainnet activation was not confirmed by the review date.
- Pre migration history · Partial. Blocks before 26 March 2025 were produced by Celo's former proof-of-stake validator set under different security assumptions; mainnet nodes import that history from a snapshot rather than re-executing it.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Security
- Gives up
- Decentralized sequencing and proposing: one sequencer orders all transactions, only whitelisted proposers can post state roots, and L2BEAT says withdrawals freeze if they stop. Data availability is delegated to EigenDA instead of Ethereum, and contract upgrades take effect instantly, leaving users no exit window.The security emphasis refers to settlement on Ethereum with zero-knowledge fault proofs. It is qualified by L2BEAT's Stage 0 rating, whitelisted challengers, reliance on EigenDA operators and instant-upgrade keys. Celo says it intends to make the challenger set permissionless over time.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 1415Celo lists at least 4 CPUs (8 recommended), 16 GB+ RAM, a 1 TB+ SSD (NVMe recommended) and 100 Mb/s+ download for a mainnet node. A node also needs an Ethereum L1 RPC and beacon endpoint (Celo advises a paid plan or a self-hosted node), and mainnet nodes must start from a published snapshot because op-reth cannot re-execute the pre-migration history.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | A protocol-level trust-minimized swap mechanism on Celo was not reviewed; EVM contracts could implement one but none was verified. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Unknown | A light-client verification path for the current Celo Layer 2 was not reviewed. |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer anchored to Celo was reviewed. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Celo runs EVM smart contracts, and the Isthmus upgrade (mainnet 9 July 2025) added set-code transactions (EIP-7702). Protocol-level fee abstraction also lets ordinary accounts pay gas in allowlisted tokens. 12916 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Celo's core contracts include an Escrow contract: the sender can revoke an unclaimed payment and reclaim the funds after an expiry they set, while the recipient can withdraw until it is revoked. This performs part (a) for payments sent through Escrow, which is opt-in and does not cover ordinary transfers. Scope is limited: no protocol recovery path for part (b) was cited. Escrow's current use was not measured. 1920 |
| Rollups | Unknown | Chains anchored to Celo (Layer 3s) were not reviewed. Celo itself is a Layer 2 on Ethereum; see the mechanism and Ethereum-dependency sections of this profile. |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Established in the ecosystemUniswap v3, Uniswap v4 | Celo's docs list Uniswap v4 (PoolManager) and v3 contracts on Celo mainnet, and Uniswap's own deployment page lists the same v3 factory (0xAfE208a311B21f13EF87E33A90049fC17A7acDEc). Liquidity depth was not measured and other venues were not reviewed. 2122 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | Established in the ecosystemUSDC (Circle), USDT (Tether), Mento stablecoins (USDm, EURm and others) | Circle lists a Celo mainnet USDC contract in its own USDC address list, and Tether lists a USDT contract on Celo. Mento stablecoins are issued on Celo; Mento Labs announced in November 2025 that they would be renamed (cUSD to USDm, cEUR to EURm, cKES to KESm) with contract addresses unchanged, and Celo and Mento docs now use the new names. Mento documents USDm and EURm as backed by a reserve of fiat-backed stablecoins, and FX stablecoins such as GBPm as borrowed against USDm. Native here means issued on Celo, not a protocol asset. 23242526272829 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Mento's current docs describe reserve-backed and collateralized-debt designs, not an algorithmic stablecoin. Other algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Celo were not reviewed. 2728 |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolCelo native bridge (Superbridge interface), Squid Router, LayerZero, Portal (Wormhole), Satellite (Axelar), Transporter (Chainlink CCIP), USDT0 | The native bridge is the OP Stack standard bridge with the custom gas token feature: CELO, WETH and ERC-20 tokens move between Ethereum and Celo, but native ETH bridging is not supported. Celo's bridge page also lists the third-party bridges named here, and puts USDT0 (a multi-network USDT service from Everdawn Labs) under native bridges although it is separate from the OP Stack standard bridge; none of these were reviewed individually. Risk: Withdrawals to Ethereum wait a 3.5-day challenge window and depend on whitelisted proposers; L2BEAT says withdrawals freeze if proposers stop. Bridge contracts can be upgraded instantly by a 2-of-2 of the cLabs and community Security Council multisigs, leaving no exit window. Third-party bridges add their own trust assumptions, and a token can exist in several bridged versions. 1011303132 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemCeloscan, Blockscout (celo.blockscout.com) | Celo's docs list Celoscan and Blockscout, and Celoscan's own site says it is built by the Etherscan team; explorer.celo.org, named on Celo's network page, redirects to the Blockscout instance. Explorer indexes are not canonical consensus. 333435 |
| Hardware wallets | Established in the ecosystemLedger, Trezor (through MetaMask or Rabby) | See custody rows: Ledger lists CELO and Celo documents a Celo device app for Ledger; Trezor lists the Celo network but only through third-party wallet apps, not Trezor Suite. 363839 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Native supportSame as native: Unknown | Can: Set up and manage a Celo account with the Ledger Wallet app, per Ledger's Celo page Can: Install the Celo device app through Ledger Wallet and use it with the apps Celo's Ledger guide names (Celo Terminal, Celo Web Wallet, Celo CLI); whether each still works with the Layer 2 was not checked Can: Pay gas in allowlisted tokens from Ledger Live, which Celo docs list as building fee-currency transactions Cannot: Sign EIP-712 typed data with the Celo device app (for example Safe multisig signatures over WalletConnect); Celo docs describe a workaround using another Ledger appLedger's Celo page is a general product page that names CELO but does not detail device-app features, and its description of Celo (phone-number payments, cUSD as a second native token) predates the Layer 2 migration. Ledger's open-source Ledger Wallet code has a Celo module declaring send and staking-style operations (delegate, undelegate, claim reward, withdraw), but whether locking and voting work end to end after the migration was not tested. 16363738 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or Rabby (third-party wallet apps)Same as native: No | Can: Keep Celo account keys on a Trezor Safe 3, Safe 5 or Safe 7 and sign through MetaMask or Rabby, per Trezor's Celo page Cannot: Manage Celo in the Trezor Suite app Cannot: Pay gas in stablecoins through MetaMask, which Celo docs say drops the fee-currency field so gas is taken from the CELO balanceTrezor's page lists the Celo network but shows it as not supported in Trezor Suite; coverage of older Trezor models was not reviewed. 1639 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Celo yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
Celo mainnet switched its execution client to op-reth
Celo mainnet moved from op-geth to op-reth on 22 July 2026, after Celo Sepolia on 24 June. Nodes still running op-geth will not be able to follow the canonical chain going forward.
- Implementation:Celo-compatible op-reth released
- Release:Released
- Activation:running on mainnet since 22 July 2026
Sources: Celo Forum (Celo Core Co.) — Celo Mainnet Is Now Running op-reth (external site) · Celo Documentation — Run a node (external site)
-
Celo published an incident report on a chain ID validation bug
A bug introduced during the Layer 2 migration let access-list transactions with the wrong chain ID be accepted on Celo mainnet. It was reported on 15 December 2025 and blocked at the sequencer the same day, and the code fix shipped with Jovian. One such transaction was included; the report says no funds were at risk or taken.
- Implementation:sequencer filter deployed; fix included in Jovian
- Release:Resolved
- Activation:mitigated since 15 December 2025
Source: Celo Forum (core engineering team) — Incident Report: Chain ID Validation Bypass (external site)
-
Jovian hardfork activated on Celo mainnet
Jovian activated on 31 March 2026 at 12:06:28 UTC. It moved Celo from its own gas price floor to the OP Stack's configurable minimum base fee, adjusted gas accounting for the transfer precompile, prepared for Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade and upgraded the EigenDA proxy.
- Implementation:client releases published
- Release:Released
- Activation:active on mainnet since 31 March 2026
Sources: Celo Forum (core engineering team) — Jovian Hardfork Live on Celo Mainnet (external site) · Celo Documentation — Jovian Hardfork notice (external site)
-
Jello hardfork turned on zero-knowledge fault proofs on Celo mainnet
The Jello upgrade activated OP Succinct Lite on Celo mainnet, adding zero-knowledge proofs for dispute resolution, a proof-checked bridge for EigenDA data, and an initial set of six whitelisted challengers (five independent, one run by cLabs).
- Proposal:approved as CGP-265
- Implementation:Ethereum contract changes executed by the Security Council
- Release:released; no client upgrade required
- Activation:active on mainnet since 10 December 2025
Sources: Celo Forum (cLabs) — Jello Hardfork Successfully Activates on Mainnet, Introducing OP Succinct Lite (external site) · Celo Documentation — Jello upgrade (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Celo through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Celo Core Co. is described in a July 2026 Celo Forum retrospective as the unified organization of cLabs and the Celo Foundation, with an engineering team formerly known as cLabs; the formal legal structure and the date of the unification were not confirmed from a corporate filing or official blog post. Celo's Security Council page and L2BEAT still name the upgrade multisig as cLabs'.
- The 3.5-day challenge window, the proposer and challenger whitelists, the 12-hour forced-inclusion delay and the fallback to Ethereum if EigenDA is unavailable come from L2BEAT; the Celo pages reviewed did not state them.
- Whether Espresso fast confirmations were live on mainnet by the review date was not verified.
- Celo's transaction-fee page still describes a base fee floor and says, as of November 2024, that the final use of mainnet fees was unconfirmed; the Jovian upgrade replaced the floor with the OP Stack minimum base fee. A March 2026 forum proposal (CELOccelerate) would send net sequencer revenue to the Community Fund; whether it was adopted, and where fees go today, was not verified.
- Current mainnet chain and snapshot size were not captured; the node posture relies on Celo's published minimums.
- Ledger's Celo page is generic; whether locking, voting and fee-currency payments work in Ledger Wallet today was not confirmed on a Ledger page.
- No scaling layers anchored to Celo (Layer 3s or channels) were reviewed, so this profile lists none.
- Atomic-swap, light-client and algorithmic-stablecoin surfaces were not reviewed beyond Mento's own description.
- Third-party bridges and the status of older Celo bridges were not reviewed individually.
- AMM venues other than Uniswap, including Mento's own exchange, were not reviewed, and liquidity was not measured.
- Use of the Escrow contract after the Layer 2 migration was not measured.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Celo Protocol (external site)
- L2 Architecture (external site)
- Celo L2 Migration (external site)
- L2 Migration specification (external site)
- Finality (external site)
- EigenDA (external site)
- Jello upgrade (external site)
- Jello Hardfork Successfully Activates on Mainnet, Introducing OP Succinct Lite (external site)
- Isthmus Hardfork notice (external site)
- Celo (external site)
- Security Council (external site)
- H1 2026 Engineering Retro & H2 2026 Roadmap (external site)
- Season 2 CICLOPS Retro (external site)
- Run a node (external site)
- Configuration (external site)
- Fee Abstraction (external site)
- Transaction Fees (external site)
- L2 Epoch Rewards (external site)
- Escrow (external site)
- Core Contracts (external site)
- Uniswap Contracts (external site)
- CELO Deployments (Uniswap v3) (external site)
- USDC Contract Addresses (external site)
- Supported Protocols (external site)
- Stablecoin Contracts (external site)
- Mento overview (external site)
- The Reserve (external site)
- CDPs (external site)
- Mento Stablecoin Rebranding and Strategic Evolution (external site)
- USDT0 (external site)
- Native Bridge (external site)
- Bridges (external site)
- Block Explorers (external site)
- Network Overview (external site)
- Celo Mainnet Explorer (external site)
- Celo Wallet - Buy, manage & hold your CELO (external site)
- coin-celo supportedFeatures.ts (ledger-live repository) (external site)
- Ledger setup (external site)
- Celo wallet (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding