TL;DR
-
Celo is on a path to becoming the ‘Visa/Mastercard’ of stablecoin payments, making them cheap, accessible, and hands-off (across all major chains).
Full Story
$USDT is launching on Celo — which may feel like déjà vu, cause $USDC launched there just two weeks ago.
Here’s why we’re weirdly intrigued by something as boring as stablecoin integrations:
It looks like Celo is trying to become the Visa (or Mastercard) of stablecoin payments — i.e. cheap, accessible, and hands-off.
Celo is designed specifically for fast and low-cost payments on Ethereum (them and every other layer 2 out there).
So many folks are working on it, cause right now, if you buy something using $USDT via the main Ethereum network – you’re going to be paying a criminal amount of transaction fees.
Think: anywhere between $50 and $500.
If you did the same thing via Celo, you’d pay around $0.001 for that same transaction, regardless of ETH’s price – in fact, it’ll do it for you across any $USDT friendly blockchain (like Tron, Solana, Avalanche and Omni).
“Cool, so, is this gonna affect me??” — you, probably.
Yeah, it probs will.
If you use crypto, you and Celo (or something like it) will eventually cross paths.
Cause if crypto is going to catch on as a universal payment method — the most common form will be some kind of stablecoin.
A network like Celo essentially says to consumers:
“We don’t care what kind of stablecoin you’re holding, or which blockchain you’re trying to send it across — we’ll make sure it gets to where it needs to go, regardless.”
(Which is a standard in fiat debit/credit payments, that crypto is yet to meet).
Noice!