The Celo blockchain’s long-awaited plan of turning into an Ethereum layer-2 chain has been accomplished, ending an virtually two-year course of, the primary organizations behind the community mentioned Wednesday.
The transition ends an extended journey starting again in July 2023 for the layer-1 blockchain that included a group vote in July 2024 and a fierce competitors, gained by Optimism, amongst layer-2 networks out to persuade the Celo ecosystem to construct with their expertise.
The improved community — like different layer 2s — gives sooner and cheaper transactions on high of Ethereum’s mainnet. The blockchain is powered by Optimism’s OP Stack, a customizable framework that lets builders construct layer-2 networks primarily based off of Optimism’s expertise.
“You know, whenever people ask us, we always recommend the OP stack, because the team there has been so helpful and so supportive,” mentioned Marek Olszewski, the CEO at cLabs, the primary developer agency supporting the Celo blockchain.
A blueprint for different layer 1s
Based on Rene Reisberg, the CEO of the Celo Basis, the migration is the primary of its variety within the Ethereum ecosystem, and can in all probability be used as a blueprint for different EVM-compatible blockchains that want to turn out to be a layer-2 community.
“This path of not just spinning up a new chain, but actually maintaining that history, and having everyone be on the new chain, while it’s a lot more work, is great from a Celo perspective. It’s becoming this kind of great case study for Ethereum,” Rene Reinsberg, the president on the Celo Basis, mentioned in an interview.
“Even just based on outreach I’ve been getting from other L1 founders that are like, ‘hey, so what does it actually feel like on the inside of going through this transition, and how much work is it, and how you’re thinking about it?’ And so it definitely feels like there’s increased interest now,” Reinsberg added.
Regardless of Ethereum’s leaders experiencing backlash from the group due to the clunky expertise of working between the plethora of layer-2 blockchains, the lagging value of ether (ETH) relative to different cryptocurrencies and the blockchain dropping mindshare and new expertise to rivals like Solana, Reinsberg mentioned different layer 1s just like Celo are watching the transition and likewise contemplating transferring into the layer-2 ecosystem.
“As some of these short-term storms come down and sentiment starts to shift, I think you’ll start seeing a series of layer 1s that will likely be more public about that,” Reisberg mentioned. “But we’re definitely already seeing these early conversations happening.”
Celo’s new house
Based on the crew, Celo finish customers gained’t discover a lot of a distinction of their setups, and can nonetheless have the ability to entry key options like SocialConnect, a protocol that connects customers’ telephone numbers or X handles to their Celo pockets addresses to make funds. However, there are protocol-level modifications.
“Validator responsibilities have evolved from operating the consensus protocol to temporarily running community RPC nodes, with validator rewards now distributed via smart contract execution rather than at epoch blocks,” the crew mentioned in a press launch. “Additionally, transaction sequencing — previously determined by validators running the consensus protocol — will initially be handled by a centralized sequencer, with a roadmap in place for transitioning to decentralized sequencing in the future.”
Learn extra: Celo Group Ratifies Plan to Use Optimism’s OP Stack for New Layer-2 Chain
