ReFi Apps on Celo
Caveat! I shared a draft of this with the Celo team and entrepreneurial community and learned that the data source I used for this (celohub) is outdated and there are so many new projects not reflected in this. Instead of trying to rebuild this once I have access to a more complete accurate list of projects, I decided to publish it as is for now as an MVP of something hopefully the Celo team with the ReFi community can improve upon. Think of this as an open source, composable first draft :)
As the latest member of the Celo community, we were inspired to dive into the ecosystem of app developers who are building on Celo. In particular, we thought it was worth mapping out the current apps classified in the Celo Hub as impact apps.
For efficiency purposes, and to focus on builders with an impact app (web or mobile) in the marketplace already we chose to highlight the 13 apps currently listed as live plus WheelCoin, which is live in iOS and Android (since October 2022) and was just announced to be joining the Celo network.
ReFi is emerging as one of the positive narratives in the current bear market. As we hopefully put the past crypto scams behind us (for now), the crypto community is increasingly embracing the power of crypto to accelerate social and ecological impact around the globe.
Celo, a mobile-first, carbon negative, pioneer in the ReFi space is rapidly becoming a first choice for ReFi projects.
We have positioned the 14 apps with respect to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This resulted in three categories of ReFi apps on Celo.
Social Impact Apps on Celo
Two of the apps in this category, Impact Market and GoodDollar, have a primary focus on enabling distribution of Universal Basic Income (UBI) payments to low income users literally around the globe. Meanwhile Umoja focuses on leveraging Celo tools to address the unbanked and Grameen Foundation, a global pioneer in micro-finance to help the unbanked and underbanked gain access to financing for starting and growing micro-enterprises chose Celo for the mobile on-chain solution.
Eco-Impact Apps on Celo
We recently published the ReFi Climate Stack highlighting the exploding area of eco and climate solutions being built on crypto rails across the entire blockchain ecosystem. Celo is one of a handful of layer 0–1s that are not only carbon neutral or negative but also fostering a vibrant developer community taking climate action on the Celo blockchain. In fact there are several other ambitious projects on Celo (or partnered with Celo) that are not named in this post because they are not defined as “impact apps” on the Celo Hub. To learn more about the broader climate ecosystem on Celo check out the Climate Collective.
Wren and Moss both aim to enable more transparent carbon offsets for consumers and businesses. Wildchain and WheelCoin both leveraging gaming mechanics, the former to support conservation and the latter to encourage users (and employees) to make greener, lower carbon mobility choices.
Universal Impact Apps on Celo
As is the case with many impact projects (on and off chain) it is often difficult to narrow which of the 17 SDGs are the primary impact outcomes since many impact projects have socio economic and ecological impacts. The six projects classified here all primarily leverage Celo’s crypto rails to decentralize funding to a broad range of impact projects (across the SDGs) usually with token holders having the governance rights to decide how the funding is allocated. Even Valora, the Celo built wallet, is in this category as the team leverages its partnerships and ecosystem relationships (e.g. with Grameen) to facilitate impact in developing markets.
Conclusion
Celo is not alone in embracing crypto’s potential for global impact. Yet the decisions made by the team to embrace the ethos of prosperity and climate-positive action has helped Celo quickly become a magnet for developers seeking to build ReFi apps. We at Iomob are proud to have WheelCoin join this growing group of ReFi apps on the Celo blockchain.
