Hi everyone! Garm here, CTO at Glo Dollar - the stablecoin that funds public goods.
We propose that Mento allocates $1M (or ~0.7%) of its Current Reserve Holdings in Glo Dollars (USDGLO) to fund Celo Public Goods, at zero cost.
Doing so has three distinct benefits:
- Enable Mento’s treasury to embed philanthropic impact through Glo Dollar’s Automatic Public Goods Funding (autoPGF) Mechanism. Holding Glo Dollars creates a virtuous cycle of Celo public goods funding, instead of extracting value like USDC/USDT.
- Support the development of an alternative US regulated stablecoin that benefits the public and the broader crypto ecosystem, instead of a few shareholders.
- Strengthen cUSD’s resilience by diversifying into more native, centralized, USD-backed stablecoins.
What is Glo Dollar?
Glo Dollar (USDGLO) is the stablecoin that funds public goods.
Stablecoin companies generate up to $7.4 billion in profits annually from their stablecoin reserves. Our approach is different—we funnel 100% of our profits to public goods and charities.
Holding Glo Dollars creates a virtuous cycle to grow ecosystems. By choosing Glo Dollar, you’re funding public goods. At no cost.
Choosing the causes to support can be done from our dApp. Right now, users can select between three cause areas: web3 public goods, fighting extreme poverty, or combating climate change. We’ll add more causes and cause areas on a rolling basis.
We’d love to add Celo Public Goods as a recipient of our proceeds. Glo Dollar users across all chains would be able to generate funds for Celo Public Goods.
Glo Dollar is available on 7 chains: Ethereum, Celo, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Stellar, and Base.
How it works
What happens when you buy Glo Dollars:
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The fiat backing Glo Dollar is invested and earns revenue (similar to other stablecoins). The Glo Foundation receives its part of the revenue on-chain—all transactions are displayed on our website.
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We donate 100% of our profits on these investments to public goods and charities—the user decides which public goods and charities. Donations are sent on-chain and reported on our website. These can be directed to Celo Public Goods.
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You’re funding public goods at zero cost.
We call this Automatic Public Goods Funding (AutoPGF, S/O to Marek), because it is:
- Simple: just hold a stablecoin
- Zero-cost: holding a stablecoin is free
- Embeddable: in treasuries, payroll, card transactions, …
Glo Dollar, Mento Labs, and Celo are mission-aligned
Mento Labs is on a mission to develop the next generation of assets for real-world adoption.
Early interest shows that Glo Dollar’s philanthropy, which doesn’t rely on donations, is attracting people beyond the crypto community. This is key for getting more widespread use in the real world. We’re working on more features and products that help us gain mainstream adoption, such as Glo Dollar backed credit cards in collaboration with Rain.
Celo’s mission is to build a regenerative digital economy that creates conditions of prosperity for all.
By using Glo Dollars, we’re embedding regeneration into our currency (→ economy). With your support, we’re confident that we can scale to a $24 million market cap in 2024, which in the current interest rate environment could funnel up to $1,000,000 into a regenerative digital economy. In practical terms, that means we could:
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Donate $1,000,000 towards Celo Public Goods, or
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Lift more than 2000 people out of extreme poverty through GiveDirectly, or
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Avert hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Co2e through CATF.
We view this proposal as a solid foundation for building a closer partnership. Once Glo Dollar reaches the scale-up stage, we’d love to expand our offerings with a Euro edition of Glo. Given Mento Labs’ background (spin-off from Celo, EU-domiciled, an exceptional team), they’re considered our ideal partner for this. Short-term, we’d also like to set up a cUSD/USDGLO trading pair to allow for direct issuance and redemption of cUSD via Glo Dollar.
Risks
Glo Dollar is 100% fiat-backed, always redeemable 1:1 for USD and USDC, issued and regulated in the United States, and receives monthly independent attestations.
In April, we received our Bluechip rating, with an initial B grade. This places us in the top 10 fiat-backed stablecoin, and we’re deemed safer than Tether’s USDT, FRAX, FDUSD, among others. Glo Dollar received the following assessments:
- Stability: Stable
- Management: Very low risk
- Decentralization: High risk (not relevant to the grade)
- Governance: Low risk
Glo Dollar is developed by the Glo Foundation and issued by Brale, which acts as the US-regulated entity that manages the reserves. Brale is led by Ben Milne, who previously founded Dwolla and served on the board of a US bank. Tens of US states continuously monitor and scrutinize Brale as part of their holding Money Transmitter Licenses in each state separately. This is the same regulatory framework under which Circle issues USDC.
I really love to see you posting in this forum. 
in favor of this proposal.
, especially considering community current activities with loans in USDGLO through ReFiMedellin.
