It's time for our end-of-year recap! 🎉 Not only did the Celo ecosystem make strides toward our shared mission to create prosperity for all, we've transitioned from vision → impact Keep reading for highlights from Rene ◘'s letter to the community:

2/ As Celo founders (@RegenRene @marek_ @SepKamvar) wrote in the whitepaper 7 years ago, "for a cryptographic social payments system to prosper, sending a payment should be as easy as sending a text message." 📲 Today, these tools exist & are onboarding new entrants to Web3

3/ Products #BuiltOnCelo like @Opera's self-custodial dollar stablecoin wallet @MiniPay have found PMF to surpass 4M+ users sending & receiving stables w/ just a few taps on their smartphone It's also enabled users to pay for groceries, receive income for microwork & more!

4/ Celo emerged as the "Home of Stablecoins" with: → 13 native stablecoins tracking 7 currencies → @Tether_to's USDT & @Circle's USDC native integrations & accepted as gas currencies → Local digital currencies incl. @MentoLabs's cKES, PUSO, cCOP & @BRLAdigital's BRLA & more

5/ The community-funded @StabilaFnd launched to accelerate growth & adoption of Celo stables, following record $1.14B stablecoin volume in July

6/ Stabila's commitment to Celo's onchain FX market led significant traction on @Uniswap V3 w/ stable asset pools & @Bancor next-gen DEX @CarbonDeFixyz also allows for seamless FX trading

7/ This year, Celo reached milestones incl.: → 598M total transactions (+135% Y/Y) → 9.7M total active addresses → 718K Daily Active Users (DAUs) → 12M+ weekly transactions w/ over 855K weekly active addresses

8/ Celo further surpassed 500M transactions, overtook Ethereum L1 in daily transactions & reached an all-time high for fees earned in November

9/ Celo was also shortlisted by @Grayscale Research as a Top 20 high-potential asset based on “upcoming catalysts, trending market themes, and token-specific fundamentals” concurrent with the rise of crypto’s institutional adoption, among other major feats

10/ Through the community's commitment to building a robust, battle-tested & accessible ecosystem, applications are as diverse and relevant as ever, incl.: → P2P & cross-border payments cc: @Valora & @minipay → Lending cc: @Haraka_xyz → UBI cc: @gooddollarorg

11/ Additional use cases cont'd: → Prediction markets w/ Africasters seeing 138K users → Onchain biodiversity data w/ @GainForest's @BioDivX winning the @xprize → Plastic recovery w/ @Plastiks_io in partnership w/ @Danone & @bayer04_en

12/ The potential for these applications & many more to benefit everyday users was showcased through the #CryptoisUseless campaign, launched at @Binance Blockchain Week & continued throughout @Shefiorg Summit & @EFDevcon

13/ A creator ecosystem reemerged through the Celosphere NFT marketplace, built by @Rarible & the Celo Creators Fund: → 255 applicants from 54 countries applied for Season 1 → 30 shortlisted artists generated 315K CELO → 100K+ unique collectors minted 200K NFTs

14/ 2024 was an excellent time for builders w/ @CeloDevs building AI agents w/ @autonolas, apps for @MiniPay & IRL & virtual hackathons leading to: → 314 total hackathon projects submitted → 282 monthly active developers (+34.9% Y/Y) → 900 builders #BuiltOnCelo in 2024

15/ Tools like @UseCapsule and @MobileStackXYZ also make it easier for anyone to launch a wallet, with Mobile Stack custom building @SheFiOrg's wallet tailored to their global, inclusive community 🙌

16/ The community also found new ways to grow the ecosystem: → Hosting Celo Gathers in Berlin, Nairobi & Bangkok → @CeloPublicGoods allocating 250K CELO to 89 ecosystem projects in RetroPGF round 1 → Launching regional DAOs in the Philippines, Mexico, Vietnam & more

17/ The Celo community also showed up & showed out 🎉 🎉 → 47 governance proposals → 7M+ social impressions → 126.3K+ Twitter/X followers → 10K+ @farcaster_xyz followers → 287K @Layer3 quests completed → 16.3K+ @Galxe followers

18/ Meanwhile, @cLabs was hard at work w/ Celo's migration from an EVM L1 to an Ethereum L2, with milestones incl.: → The community's vote in favor of leveraging @Optimism's OP Stack → The launch of the Dango & Alfajores testnets, w/ CEL2 on track for Q1 2025

19/ Celo's return home to Ethereum will further align both ecosystems, w/ @cLabs contributing to unifying efforts like @Uniswap & @AcrossProtocol's ERC-7683 (c.f. @marek_'s "Celo as a Cultural Extension of Ethereum" op-ed in @T2World & @EICquarterly) 🔗

20/ At Settlement Day in Bangkok, hosted w/ @Acrossprotocol, thought leaders incl. @VitalikButerin, @marek_ , @DrakeFJustin, @StaniKulechov, @karl_dot_tech, @hal2001, @rjdrost & @ethereumJoseph et al. discussed the future of Ethereum as *the* settlement layer for Web3

21/ What's next? Celo enters its "impact era" in 2025! With UX & accessibility greatly improved, new users can onboard & easily integrate crypto into their daily lives without realizing it, what @a16zcrypto's @ChrisLyons called "Hiding the Wires"

22/ AI & agent economies could fuel demand for privacy-first decentralized ID protocols offering proof of personhood With better on-/off-ramps & UX, ReFi could gain greater traction in 2025, making environmental & community-focused solutions more accessible than ever

23/ Thank you to our community for driving real-world adoption & impact throughout the world For Rene's full letter & a comprehensive breakdown of Celo in 2024, visit: Happy holidays, we look forward to building together in 2025! 💛

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