GM Celorians! 
This time we’re doing things a little differently. Instead of a single month, this report covers all of Season 2: the full first half of 2026, from January 1st to June 30th. Six months of steady work, consistent engagement, and a community that kept showing up week after week.
There were no big plot twists this semester, and that’s actually good news. After the resets and relaunches of past years, H1 2026 was all about stability and consistency: rewards flowing on schedule, calls happening on time, and our spaces staying active, safe, and welcoming. Let’s get into it. 
General
H1 2026 Funding Secured & Six Months of Uninterrupted Operations
The initiative was renewed for the first half of 2026, with 738,258 CELO received from the Community Fund in early March. Even while the funding was being processed, the team kept everything running, and January and February obligations were settled retroactively as soon as the funds landed. The result: a full semester without operational gaps. All core programs (the Guild.xyz leaderboard rewards, the Community Steward roles, and the hangout incentives) ran from January through June, and it showed in the numbers, with healthy engagement across all platforms and no dead months on the calendar.
Guild.xyz Rewards Keep the Engine Running
The monthly leaderboard rewards continued to be the backbone of our engagement strategy. Every single month, 800 CELO was distributed among the top contributors on Guild.xyz, adding up to 4,800 CELO across the semester. We kept seeing the mix we like: familiar names defending their spots and new faces breaking into the rankings. At this point the system has matured into a reliable incentive engine that keeps conversations going without needing constant reinvention.
New This Semester: The Celo Community Content Contest 
In April we launched the Celo Community Content Contest, a monthly initiative rewarding Celorians who create quality content about the ecosystem. The contest ran in April, May, and June, with 700 CELO distributed in rewards during its first three editions. It’s a fresh way to recognize creators beyond chat activity, and we plan to keep it going in H2.
Community Stewards
Our Community Stewards kept doing their thing all semester long, supporting moderation and community initiatives. Steward rewards of 699 CELO per month were paid out consistently for all six months, totaling 4,194 CELO.
Moderator Calls & Coordination
Our monthly moderator calls ran throughout the semester, keeping stewards and moderators aligned on moderation standards, reward verification, and community feedback. Together with daily async coordination, these sessions kept the team in sync and any issues resolved quickly. Most moderation work this semester was routine cleanup rather than firefighting.
Community Hangouts
The bi-weekly Community Hangouts on Discord remained our favorite touchpoint with the community. Twice a month, Celorians gathered to chat about ecosystem updates, share feedback, and simply hang out, with the most engaged participant of each call taking home a CELO reward. Attendance stayed consistent across the semester. These relaxed sessions are still one of our best tools for real-time connection.
Treasury & Accounting 
Transparency time. Every movement of Guild funds is recorded on-chain through our Safe and tracked in our public accounting sheet. The highlights for the semester:
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738,258 CELO received from the Community Fund for H1 2026, plus a carryover of 205 CELO and 1,280 cUSD from the previous season. In total, the Guild started the season with 738,463 CELO and 1,280 cUSD.
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675,000 CELO swapped to cUSD through Mento across four transactions, to cover stable-denominated costs.
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54,000 cUSD paid to the core team (9,000 cUSD per month covering the four contributors).
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4,800 CELO in Guild.xyz rewards, 4,194 CELO in Steward rewards, and 700 CELO in Content Contest prizes distributed to the community.
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At the time of writing the Safe holds 2,841 cUSD and 53,569 CELO, verified on-chain.
Every transaction is verifiable on Blockscout through the links in the accounting sheet.
Statistics
Discord
Growth & Activation Key Metrics
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Total Membership Over Time:
The server held steady around the 13.5K member mark throughout the semester. After a dip in April and a brief correction in early May, membership recovered nicely through June and closed the period at roughly 13.54K, trending upward. A healthy sign heading into H2. -
New Members Joining:
Weekly joins ranged between 45 and 107 new members, with the strongest wave arriving in mid-May. Most newcomers found us through our Vanity URL, which confirms that Celo’s social presence and ecosystem visibility remain our top acquisition channels. The semester also closed on a high note, with the last week of June up 64.6% in new members compared to the week before. -
Activation & Retention:
Between 35% and 60% of new members explored beyond their first few channels on day one. Week-1 retention stayed above the 20% benchmark for most of the semester, peaking near 40% and closing June at 37%, one of the strongest readings of the period. First-day talk rates stayed below the 15% benchmark, so that remains the main onboarding metric to improve in H2.
Engagement Key Metrics
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Message Activity:
Conversation stayed well distributed across the server, and the closing week of June saw new communicators more than double (+108%). That’s momentum we want to carry into the second half of the year. -
Server Leaves:
Weekly leaves stayed in the 20 to 46 range with no unusual spikes, split between newer accounts and longer-tenured members. Normal churn for a server of this size.
Telegram
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Message Count:
The Telegram group closed the semester at 5.8K members and crossed 250.7K total messages, with conversation staying reliably active week over week. Early July snapshots showed viewing members up 9.4% and posting members up 34%, which suggests the group is heading into H2 with more active voices, not fewer. -
Moderation Actions:
Moderation stayed light and effective throughout the semester, mostly quick spam and self-promotion cleanup. The group remained largely self-moderating and welcoming.
Reddit
- Traffic & Visitors:
The Subreddit saw steady, low-key traffic across the semester. January was the strongest month at roughly 1.9K visits, followed by consistent months in the 1.5K to 1.8K range through April, before easing to around 1.2K in June as ecosystem news slowed down. Most visits came through New Reddit and mobile (web and apps), showing our Reddit audience skews toward casual, on-the-go readers. No big spikes this semester, just a steady stream of Celorians keeping an eye on the ecosystem.
Final Thoughts
Season 2 was a success built on consistency. Six months of uninterrupted operations, membership holding strong and trending up, retention above benchmark, and more people posting at the end of the semester than at the start. That’s what a healthy, maturing community looks like.
Like the rest of the ecosystem, we felt the pressure of market conditions on CELO-denominated funding. Swapping part of the budget to cUSD early in the season helped us keep stable commitments covered without surprises.
As always, none of this happens without our moderators and stewards keeping Discord, Telegram, and Reddit welcoming and spam-free every single day. Community engagement in Web3 will always move with the market, but the Guild’s foundation has rarely felt more solid.
Looking Ahead to Season 3
For the second half of 2026 the plan is to keep what works (Guild.xyz rewards, hangouts, and the Content Contest) while pushing on the two things the data tells us to improve: getting more new members to talk on day one, and converting Reddit’s quiet readers into active Celorians. See you there. 
