Dear Celo Community,
This proposal requests funding from the Celo Community Fund to support the next six months (January–June 2026) of core protocol development by the cLabs team. The scope of this funding period is directly aligned with the milestones outlined in the recently published cLabs H1 2026 Roadmap, which details the protocol upgrades, infrastructure work, and sequencing planned for the first half of the year.
This proposal focuses on resourcing the execution of that roadmap. It outlines the associated milestones, cost estimates, and cLabs’ continued commitment to transparency, milestone-based reporting, and accountable use of community funds.
Background
Following a year of sustained execution in 2025, including the successful transition to an Ethereum Layer-2 and multiple production hardforks, Celo enters 2026 with a stable operational foundation and a clear, publicly shared roadmap.
As described in the cLabs H1 2026 Roadmap, the team’s priorities for the first half of 2026 include:
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Delivering the Jovian upgrade and related OP Stack alignment
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Advancing faster finality through pre-confirmations in collaboration with Espresso
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Enabling Fusaka following Jovian, contingent on upstream OP Stack dependencies
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Continuing improvements to performance, security, and verifiability
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Providing ongoing stewardship of ecosystem-critical infrastructure, including Valora
This funding proposal is intended to support execution against those roadmap commitments and does not introduce additional scope beyond what has already been shared with the community.
Milestones for the Next 6 Months
| Milestone | Overview | Deliverables | Target Window |
| Jovian Hardfork | Upgrade Celo L2 to OP Stack Upgrade 17 | Jovian-compatible op-geth, op-node, and fault-proof stack; mainnet hardfork | Q1 2026 |
| Espresso Integration | Integrate pre-confirmations to improve confirmation latency | Pre-confirmation integration work spanning testnet and mainnet readiness | Q1–Q2 2026 |
| Fusaka Enablement | Post-Jovian Ethereum compatibility upgrade | Fusaka enabled on Celo L2, contingent on OP Stack prerequisites | Q2 2026 |
| Security and Verifiability Improvements | Reduce trust assumptions and broaden fault-challenging participation | Protocol improvements and clearer documentation of guarantees | Q1–Q2 2026 |
| Performance and Scalability | Investigate throughput improvements while preserving low fees | Evaluations and configuration changes informed by network usage | Q1–Q2 2026 |
| Valora Migration and Maintenance | Continued stewardship of Celo’s primary consumer wallet | Ongoing product maintenance and migration to cLabs stewardship | Ongoing |
Funding Request
To deliver on these milestones, this proposal seeks funding for the following budget line items:
| Cost Category | Details | Total Cost (USD) |
| Fully Loaded Engineering Costs | Approximately 12 contributors across core protocol engineering, DevOps, security & IT, product and tooling | $1,121,914 |
| Infrastructure and Tooling | Cloud services, testnet hosting, monitoring, and analytics | $90,000 |
| Communications and Community Coordination | Public outreach, L2 developer events, community coordination | $30,000 |
| Total | $1,241,914 |
The total requested budget of $1,241,914 will be funded through a mix of OP and CELO, with $500,000 in OP and the remaining $741,914 in CELO. At today’s prices, $741,914 corresponds to approximately 5,787,161 CELO. Final CELO-denominated amounts and vesting schedules will be calculated using the applicable trailing average CELO price at the time of proposal approval, in line with prior proposals.
This proposed budget has been reduced by almost half from the 2025 H2 budget, to reflect current market conditions. cLabs is committed to remain conservative and responsible in today’s environment.
As with prior proposals, cLabs will continue to self-fund senior management, legal, finance, people operations, marketing, office costs, hardware, travel, and other non-protocol expenses.
Transparency and Accountability
Consistent with prior cLabs funding proposals, the CELO portion will be disbursed through a ReleaseCelo smart contract with a cliff and linear vesting thereafter. If milestone commitments are not met, the community retains the ability to revoke unvested funds through governance.
cLabs will provide regular progress updates on the Celo Forum and continue engaging governance participants and ecosystem stakeholders throughout the funding period to ensure alignment with community priorities and Ethereum’s Layer-2 roadmap.
Conclusion
H1 2026 represents a critical execution phase for Celo’s Layer-2 evolution. The milestones outlined in this proposal advance protocol alignment, improve user experience through faster finality, strengthen security and verifiability, and ensure long-term stewardship of essential ecosystem infrastructure.
This work builds on a track record of delivering major protocol upgrades in production and sets the stage for another cycle of disciplined, high-impact execution by the cLabs team.
The cLabs Team