Hi Everyone,
Happy New Year, we hope you had a chance to rest and recharge!
As we move forward into the New Year, I would like to take a moment to reflect on our progress thus far in expanding our geographic reach for off-ramping Mento Stables.
Off-Ramping Countries for the Celo blockchain
Currently, users can off-ramp Mento Stables in 49 countries (see list below) through Cash-In-Cash-Out (CICO) providers such as Alpha Fortress (Bitssa), Kotani Pay, Ramp Network, and XanPool. Centralized Exchanges have been excluded from this list for simplicity purposes.
FiatConnect Supported Countries
As a refresher in the new year, FiatConnect is an open-sourced backend API specification that standardizes the integration between a Web3 Wallet/dApp, and CICO provider to make integrations more scalable and improve the user experience when on/off ramping.
Web3 Wallets and dApps that integrate FiatConnect will be able to use one single native flow that can be reused with any CICO provider who has integrated the FiatConnect API. The full front-end user interface is owned by the Web3 Wallet/dApp, while the FiatConnect-compliant CICO provider will facilitate on/off ramping services in the backend.
Alpha Fortress and Bitmama are the first CICO providers to have completed the FiatConnect integration! As part of the Connect the World program, FiatConnect-compliant CICO providers will receive CTW funding to temporarily subsidize up to 3% of their on/off ramping fee, which will be passed to the end user as a launch promotion.
At this time, Valora, Celo’s first and native Web3 wallet, has been the first to integrate FiatConnect. Valora users in Nigeria, Kenya, and the Philippines can off-ramp Celo assets directly from Valora to their bank accounts via FiatConnect. Valora continues to work with Alpha Fortress (Bitssa) and Bitmama on a multi-phased country-by-country rollout to enable live FiatConnect on- and off-ramps. Once enabled, Valora users in the applicable country will be able to off-ramp their Mento Stables all within the Valora app!
2023 Forward Outlook
We now have quite a wide coverage of countries with off-ramps, and we aim to expand this coverage to 100+ countries by year-end!
For FiatConnect in particular, we are looking forward to having more Web3 wallets, and dApps integrate FiatConnect. This will speed up the launch of more FiatConnect ramps and broaden the governance for future FiatConnect API developments.
Resources:
Questions for the community
- What information would you like to know for future updates?
- Are you an interested CICO provider, dApp, or Web3 Wallet who would like to participate in the CTW program? Please email me at Michael.Kwan@celo.org or book a 1:1 meeting with me.
- We want to be intentional about prioritizing country ramps. Are there countries we should focus on first? Please let us know below.
As always, we welcome your questions and feedback on the program.
Thanks,
Michael