How To Stake Celo

Last Updated March 25th 2022

9 Min Read

Over 17,300 listed cryptocurrencies are available to buy, with at least 100 new cryptos added weekly. Many cryptocurrencies do the same or similar jobs with no differentiation in utility and purpose.

For a cryptocurrency to impact the market, it needs a USP. Celo seems to have captured a corner of the crypto market with innovative technology and the ability to catch audiences potentially unavailable to many other cryptos.

The Celo website says, "Crypto made for mobile. Celo is a mobile-first platform that makes financial dApps and crypto payments accessible to anyone with a mobile phone."

The Celo platform aims to bridge the gap between technologies and banking opportunities with optimised crypto technology for smartphones. The Celo platform is "EVM-compatible, open-source, and governed by CELO asset owners." This protocol means that CELO token holders have governance for decisions about Celo's development.

Celo capped the supply of CELO tokens at 1 billion, releasing 600 million on the mainnet launch in April 2020. 120 million CELO are used in reserve to maintain the price stability and validity of CUSD, the Celo native stablecoin.

Over the last week, CELO lost value, falling from $3.23 to today's price of $3.09. However, the entire cryptocurrency market turned bearish since December 2021, so CELO figures are representative of the current crypto market.

As Celo (CELO) is proof of stake (PoS) consensus, it means that CELO holders can stake their tokens and receive rewards.

This post introduces you to CELO and explains how to stake CELO to earn rewards.

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What Is Celo (CELO)?
How Does Celo Work?
What Makes Celo Unique?
How To Stake Celo (CELO)
The Best Crypto Wallet To Store CELO
Recap Of How To Stake Celo
FAQs

In 2017, Rene Reinsberg and Marek Olszewski co-founded Celo. Previously, both worked as executives for GoDaddy, a well-known and popular web hosting firm. The original Celo team also included a Google executive and an MIT professor.

Between 2018 and 2020, Celo held public and private token sales, selling around 120 million CELO tokens and raising more than $46 million.

What Is Celo (CELO)?

Celo (CELO) is a blockchain ecosystem founded to capitalise on the exponential growth of smartphone users interested in cryptocurrencies. The Celo network wants smartphone users to adopt cryptocurrency for payment transactions using a mobile phone number as a public key.

This technology opens up the cryptocurrency market for smartphone users, making it easier for global users in developing countries to access cryptos where banking facilities are restricted.

In April 2020, the Celo mainnet launched, enabling decentralised applications (DApps) and smart contracts creation.

Celo has three native tokens, CELO, CEUR and CUSD.

CELO uses proof of stake (PoS) consensus for transaction fees. The Celo dollar (CUSD) and the Cela Euro (CEUR) are stablecoins. Stablecoins help increase the transparency and efficiency of crypto transactions and stabilise price volatility.

Each CUSD is equal to the value of one US dollar via a programmatic reserve (a reserve made up of CELO and other cryptos, such as Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC). This process means that you can sell CELO for the equivalent value of CUSD and vice versa.

Celo also pegs the EURO with CEUR, another stablecoin, and Celo has more development plans for the platform. One idea is for CELO holders to suggest and vote on creating other stablecoins to mirror other currencies.

Check Out: Could Celo Be A Millionaire-Maker Coin?

Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.

How Does Celo Work?

The Celo network has three essential contributors helping run the platform.

Light Clients – The Celo Network applications run on Celo users' mobile devices, such as the Celo mobile wallet.
Validator Nodes – The computers play a part in the network proof of stake (PoS) consensus for validating transactions and creating new blocks. The Celo Governance system requires CELO token holders to elect validator nodes.
Full Nodes – Computers that connect the validator nodes and mobile wallets. The process takes the requests from light clients and forwards the transactions to the validator nodes.

The proof of stake (PoS) consensus for the Celo platform is called the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) which is a way to sync the distributed computer network for Celo.

Validator nodes require a minimum of 10,000 CELO tokens before voting on any changes and powering the blockchain. At today's price, that's a commitment of just over $35,000 of CELO tokens.

All CELO token holders help secure and operate the CELO network via validator nodes. But only 100 validator nodes operate at a time to validate transactions. The full nodes vote in the validators, and each node receives a proportional amount of the block rewards.

The full nodes receive rewards from light clients' fees.

What Makes Celo Unique?

The thing that stands Celo apart from other cryptocurrencies is the focus on targeting smartphone users with the mobile phone number as the public key.

Celo arguably believes that cryptocurrency adoption is rising slower than smartphone owners. Using a mobile phone number instead of a complex public key address is more appealing as a payment method.

The Celo technology also levels the playing field for regions without banking or Internet availability. With Celo, your smartphone gives you access to a decentralised crypto payment method even if you are in a part of the world that doesn't offer mainstream access.

How To Stake CELO?

Staking CELO is easy. Once you have staked your tokens, you can participate in governance proposals and validator elections and earn rewards from staking CELO tokens.

Choose an exchange to buy your CELO tokens
Open a crypto wallet to store your CELO tokens (List in the FAQs below)
Store your login details securely
If you're using the Celo wallet, you'll see an option to "lock" your CELO tokens before voting for a validator group
Enter how many CELO tokens you want to "lock."
Choose a validator group
Go to the "stake" tab and enter the amount to "vote" for the validator group
Confirm and activate your votes
Review and activate

That's it. You can now look forward to rewards from staking CELO tokens. The protocol is usually similar for most wallets if you use a different wallet to the CELO wallet. But make sure you choose a crypto wallet that supports CELO tokens.

The Best Crypto Wallet To Store CELO tokens

Having a secure wallet to store your crypto tokens is essential because leaving them on an open crypto exchange is unsafe. You require a wallet that can store and stake CELO tokens, which not all crypto wallets do.

The Celo website recommends several wallets to store your CELO tokens:

Valora – for iOS and Android. The Valora wallet supports your phone number as your crypto address
Celo Wallet – for desktop to support Ledger and staking
Celo Terminal – for desktop to support Ledger and staking
MetaMask - Works on Chrome, iOS, and Android and works with Ledger
Abra – works on iOS and Android
Opera – works on desktop and Android

You can find a complete list of Celo Compatible wallets on the website.

Don't Miss: The 7 Best Cryptocurrency Wallets

Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.

Recap Of How To Stake Celo

Celo has a unique utility, attracting smartphone users to access cryptocurrencies on their phones for payment transactions. This technology opens the crypto market to many global users where banking is restricted, and the Internet is unavailable.

Though many of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges don't currently list CELO, most of them likely will soon.

It's easy to buy and stake CELO to earn rewards. But, if you want to become a Celo network validator, there's a 10,000 CELO token minimum requirement.

CELO, CUSD and CEUR are the native tokens of Celo. The former is for payment transactions. The CUSD is pegged to the US dollar to stabilise price volatility, and CEUR pegs to the EURO. Both are stablecoins.

If the Celo platform pursues developments for more stablecoins, it may increase Celo popularity. And, as more smartphone users become interested in cryptos and realise how to use Celo as a payment method, that too can help the Celo platform grow.

Please note that the above information is not providing advice on tax, investment, or financial services. We provide the above information without considering risk tolerance and a specific investor's financial circumstances.

Trading or investing in financial instruments such as cryptos may not be suitable for all investors. It does involve risk and the possibility of a loss of capital. There are no guarantees for profiting from cryptocurrencies, and it's advisable only to risk what you can comfortably afford to lose.

eToro — The Top Platform To Buy Celo

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Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.

FAQs

Where Can You Buy Celo (CELO)?

CELO is available at various cryptocurrency exchanges. It's not yet available on some of the leading crypto exchanges:

eToro – the world's leading social trading platform has CELO and a proprietary secure crypto wallet
Coinbase Pro – established and trusted crypto exchange
Binance – the world's largest crypto exchange
Gate.io – established, trusted crypto exchange

How much can I earn staking Celo?

According to the Staking Rewards website, you can earn around 13% APY with adjusted inflation returning approximately 10.55% APY. To date, only 5.67% are participating in Celo staking.

How can I become a CELO network validator?

The minimum requirement to become a Celo network validator is 10,000 CELO tokens. For an in-depth tutorial, visit the Celo Validator page to discover how to become a Celo validator.

Is CELO a good investment?

Whether Celo (CELO) is a good investment depends on your investment strategy. The crypto market is currently bearish, but that could change in a heartbeat. Crypto experts predict long-term prospects for CELO are good as more smartphone users install the CELO wallet and start using CELO as a payment method.

Can CELO reach $10?

Crypto experts predict that the price of CELO could increase to $6 in 2022. With a 1 billion CELO tokens cap, it may take longer for CELO to reach $10.

What will CELO be worth in five years?

Nobody can predict the growth potential of cryptos. For the last year, most cryptos have experienced exponential growth. Midway through the year, the crypto market experienced massive bearish swings and months of price flatlining. There's no guarantee that cryptocurrency growth will continue. The Celo network has a unique proposition for users, and with the smartphone market increasing all the time, CELO will likely gain popularity. Crypto experts predict that the price of CELO tokens could be as high as $16 by 2026.