Friday May 20, 2022 - CTW Update
Hi Everyone!
My name is Will and I lead the Strategy, Research, and Innovation team at the Celo Foundation. In addition, I’m currently working on the Connect the World initiative which aims to build high quality ramps between Celo assets and fiat in 100 countries by April 2023.
This is our second weekly update on the CTW program. As always we appreciate any questions and feedback that you have on the program.
We’re Chugging along
Engagement: We connected with an additional 5 partners who are interested in joining the CTW program. The teams are evaluating the project in order to understand if it would be a good fit.
MOU Signed: We signed a partnership agreement with Ramp Network, a leading crypto to fiat asset business with presence in 170+ markets around the world. Ramp Network is currently integrated with Valora for on-ramps, but after the Connect the World and integration with FiatConnect they will activate on and off ramps in countries all over the world and also be available to any other Celo wallet provider that integrates FiatConnect.
Diligence: The team has reviewed the diligence for all 9/10 partners with no concerns. There is one partner who we are reaching out to for additional information.
Integrations: Are still underway with special thanks to the FiatConnect team for their support in shepherding early FiatConnect integrators along. There are three partners that have made significant progress with integrating FiatConnect.
Some observations:
- We have prioritized outreach to CICO partners with large global networks of on/off ramp services, with positive signs of early interest. We expect integrations with these partners could take several months but they will then be able to provide ramp services to numerous countries.
These are partners that have committed to integrated FiatConnect and have signed agreements with the Celo Foundation. Work to integrate is still in progress
Upcoming Priorities
- Getting started guide: We are working on external step-by-step resource to help onboard new partners to Connect the World and FiatConnect. We expect to launch this resource to all CICO partners by end of next week
- Securing additional technical support for integrations: Some pilot partners are having trouble finalizing the FiatConnect spec and others have limited bandwidth to start integrations in a timely manner. We are exploring options to provide more technical support for FiatConnect integrations.
Additional information and resources:
If you like to learn more about Connect the World, please check out the links below or attend one of the weekly office hours (links below)
Questions for the community
- In the interest of transparency, we want to do weekly updates about the CTW program. What information would you like to know for future updates?
- We want to be intentional about prioritizing country ramps. Are there countries we should focus on first? Please let us know below.