Hi everyone!
We’re excited to share the latest updates on Credit Collective. Over the past months, we’ve been actively supporting credit protocols, strengthening on/off-ramp solutions for emerging markets, and ensuring sustainable liquidity for key DeFi initiatives across the Celo ecosystem. Here’s a look at our progress:
- $1M deployed to on-chain private credit
- We brought Carbon DeFi, Lynx, Minteo, Unergy
- $1M staked market making - Generating $27.3M in trading volume and executing 1.4M trades in the protocol
- We contributed $240K to support the launch of Aave on Celo
To date, we have deployed $1M in USD-denominated stablecoins across nine transactions, ranging from impact-driven initiatives such as Ethichub, Quipu, Roda, and Jia, to tokenized clean energy like Uwatt (Unergy), and structured institutional instruments in partnership with Untangled, including money market funds and mezzanine positions over debt facilities.
Currently, 44% of the principal has been repaid, with 0% defaults, and all positions are performing well under their current amortization plan.
- Key DeFi Initiatives for Credit Markets
As we started providing liquidity for credit protocols, we facilitated the infrastructure needed for these protocols to operate within the community. That’s why we manage the following projects to bring critical infrastructure to the ecosystem.
3.1 Bootstrap new Emerging markets stablecoins liquidity:
To support the current development of new stables for the ecosystem issued by Mento and further create an Fx market, we bring Carbon Defi which among many functionalities with their orderbook, brings an arbitrage protocol incorporated to close the gap of the prices of the tokens across all CELO dexes.
Since its inception on Celo, Carbon DeFi has processed over $33.5M in trading volume and executed 1.5M trades within just 12 months, making it the third-largest DEX by volume in CELO the ecosystem, following Mento broker and Uniswap.
Credit Collective has been pivotal in this success, acting as the key promoter of the protocol to be launched in the ecosystem and the major liquidity provider from the beginning. Since then, we have been managing 21 strategies generating $27.3M in trading volume and executing 1.4M trades in the protocol.
Currently, we manage 21 liquidity pools on Carbon, creating markets and providing liquidity for 16 assets across the ecosystem: CELO, WETH, USDC, USDT, cUSD, USDGLO, USDyc, cEUR, agEUR, cREAL, BRLA, cKES, eXOF, PUSO, cCOP, and COPM — with more assets to be added soon. You can get more details about our strategies performance here: Credit Collective dashboard
3.2 Scaling Celo’s FX Market: The Role of Fiat- and Crypto-Backed Stablecoins
While we are highly bullish on the critical role decentralized crypto-backed stablecoins play in the ecosystem, we also recognize the complementary and essential value that fiat-backed stablecoins bring—especially improving On/Off ramp costs and accessibility.
To advance this, we partnered with Minteo, a Latin American stablecoin issuer, to pilot the launch of COPM on Celo in September 2024. COPM is a fiat-backed stablecoin that enhances real-world financial use cases. As part of this initiative, we provided liquidity for the USDC/COPM pair, enabling a permissionless FX corridor for use cases such as exports, remittances, and loans. Additionally, Minteo has integrated COPM with major B2C wallets in Colombia, such as Littio, and offers direct B2B mint/redeem capabilities for partners, as well as payouts across the Colombian banking system for anyone to use.
This pilot has delivered compelling results:
- 61,000 transactions—7x more than COPM’s performance on Polygon (its largest market)
- Achieved this with 28x less liquidity, demonstrating the efficiency of the DeFi infrastructure we are building on Celo.
Given this success, we are eager to expand our partnership with Minteo while they issue new fiat-backed stablecoins pegged to the Mexican peso, Chilean peso, Argentinian peso, and more.
Beyond this partnership, we are actively looking to explore synergies with stablecoin issuers. If anyone in the community knows stablecoin issuers in Africa or Asia, we would love to connect.
3.3 Leveraging Perpetual Contracts for Ecosystem Liquidity
To increase liquidity depth across the ecosystem, introducing a perpetual protocol was critical.
Perpetual contracts are vital for the Celo ecosystem as they offer a stable liquidity mechanism, enabling continuous market activity without expiration constraints. This is especially important for credit and other DeFi use cases, allowing traders to engage in leveraged positions while ensuring a more liquid and efficient market. To achieve this, we’ve partnered with Lynx.finance, a leading protocol specializing in decentralized perpetual contracts. Lynx’s solution provides sophisticated risk management and flexible trading options, further strengthening Celo’s financial ecosystem by enhancing liquidity and supporting the broader DeFi infrastructure.
2.4 Supporting Aave’s Launch on Celo
As part of our commitment to fostering a thriving DeFi ecosystem on Celo, Credit Collective actively contributed $400K in capital to support the launch of Aave on Celo. Our involvement provided early liquidity, ensuring smooth operations and enabling a robust lending and borrowing market from day one.
- Market engagement
In partnership with CeLatam, CeloEurope DAO, and Celo Africa DAO, we participated in five new events to foster discussions and key initiatives related to the markets being built on Celo:
- Institutional Digital Asset Manager Forum during EthCC in Brussels (July 2024)
- Blockchain Summit Latam in Bogotá (August 2024)
- Celo Gather Africa in Nairobi, Kenya (September 2024)
- LaBitconf in Buenos Aires, Argentina (November 2024)
- Pears Challenge of Validate in Tel Aviv Israel (November 2024)
Looking Ahead
Since our inception, Credit Collective has been committed to developing the Celo ecosystem through strategic partnerships like the ones outlined above. As we move into the next phase, we want to engage the community in a discussion about the best path forward for the current mandate, which runs until December 2025.
Credit Collective remains dedicated to expanding its role within Celo, supporting initiatives that drive financial inclusion and create long-term value. We have many plans with potential partners we are interested in bringing into the ecosystem, to help turn Celo to the center of stable coin activity, and the bridge between magic money and the real world.
Given the success with Carbon DeFi and Minteo, and Mento we are eager to expand our partnership with local stablecoin issuers, to bring them onto Celo and bootstrap their liquidity in the market.
For the credit collective 3 options are going forward, depending on the community’s view.
- Increase our operational capacity to further scale our efforts.
- Maintain the funds staked but in a non-operative mode.
- Return the funds
We created a form so we can better hear the hivemind - would love to hear your thoughts!
Based on this discussion, we will present a detailed plan for how the liquidity will be allocated moving forward.
We’re excited about the future and welcome any thoughts, partnerships, or collaborations that can help strengthen the Celo ecosystem.
