[GRANT PROPOSAL] Olivia Circulab: DePIN IoT Scale Network & Eco-Rider Logistics for Organic Waste Diversion in Buenos Aires

Climate and ReFi
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Olivia Circulab — DePIN IoT Scale Network & Eco-Rider Last-Mile Logistics for Organic Waste Diversion in Buenos Aires

  • Project Name: Olivia Circulab
  • Web Platform & Operational MVP: https://oliviacirculab.com.ar
  • Track: DePIN / Climate & ReFi / Real World Assets
  • Requested Funding: $48,500 USD (in $CELO / $cUSD), released in three milestone-gated tranches
  • Target Region: Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), Argentina
  • Contact Email: hola@oliviacirculab.com.ar

Revised August 2026 following community feedback: funding is now structured as milestone-gated tranches with verifiable release conditions, deployment site language reflects the current stage of each agreement, and impact projections have been restated as a ramped 12-month target.

1. Executive Summary

Olivia Circulab is an operational organic waste traceability platform (oliviacirculab.com.ar) deploying a hardware-verified Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) network in South America.

This grant will fund the deployment of 25 IoT smart scale nodes across municipal collection points and urban recycling cooperative sorting centers in Buenos Aires, alongside the launch of the Eco-Rider last-mile logistics application and the distribution of 600+ smart organic recycling kits for residential buildings (consorcios).

Every kilogram of diverted organic waste is cryptographically recorded on the Celo blockchain, directly preventing fugitive methane (CH₄) emissions in municipal landfills while creating a transparent incentive layer for citizens and waste picker cooperatives.

Critically for grant governance: because the network is hardware-signed and on-chain, project milestones are not self-reported. Node registrations and diversion records are independently auditable directly from the contract. We have structured this proposal so that fund release is conditioned on exactly those records.

2. Problem & Regional Context

The Autonomous City of Buenos Aires generates over 1,600 metric tons of organic food and green waste daily. When buried in regional landfills under anaerobic conditions, this organic matter decomposes into methane — a greenhouse gas with roughly 80x the warming potential of CO₂ over a 20-year horizon.

Currently, less than 8% of the city’s organic waste is systematically diverted. Traditional waste management lacks digital verification, which has two consequences: carbon offsets cannot be validated to international standards, and informal waste pickers have no auditable basis for fair per-kilogram compensation.

There is a further structural gap specific to this territory. The city operates staffed municipal “Puntos Verdes” where residents drop off separated waste, and a subset of these accept organics into on-site composting units. When a resident deposits organics at one of these points, that deposit is recorded nowhere. No weight, no origin, no timestamp. The resulting compost has no traceability and therefore cannot become a carbon asset. This is the specific gap our DePIN layer closes.

3. The Solution & DePIN Architecture

We have built and launched our live software MVP at oliviacirculab.com.ar, providing digital traceability, B2B subscription models for residential buildings, and AI-assisted visual composition analysis.

To achieve international-grade, auditable impact (hardware-verified MRV), Phase 2 introduces:

1. 25 DePIN IoT Scale Nodes. Sensorizing 21 staffed municipal Puntos Verdes across the city’s principal waste-generating communes, plus 4 cooperative sorting centers distributed across the north, west and south of the city. Municipal site data is drawn from the City Government’s open data portal (data.buenosaires.gob.ar). Cooperative sites are at varying stages of formalisation, ranging from active conversations to advanced negotiation; final site selection will be confirmed before Tranche 2 hardware deployment.

2. Hardware-Signed Telemetry. Cellular-connected (4G/LTE) scale microcontrollers that automatically capture weight, timestamp and geolocation, cryptographically signing each record to eliminate human error and fraud.

3. Eco-Rider Last-Mile App. Mobile logistics application connecting residential building managers, households and cooperative cargo-bike collectors for on-demand 30L/50L organic bin pickups.

4. Celo Blockchain Logging. Minting immutable Proof-of-Diversion records on Celo to generate auditable datasets (tCO₂e / tCH₄) and issue ReFi impact rewards. Records are structured from day one to meet the requirements of high-frequency digital MRV under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard, positioning the dataset for formal carbon certification from 2027.

4. Projected 12-Month Impact

Projections below are stated as a ramped target, not a day-one figure. Deployment begins in month 3; meaningful volume begins accruing from month 4 as buildings and collection points come online.

Metric Month 4 Month 12 (target)
Active nodes transmitting 8–12 25
Active residential bins 150–250 600+
Monthly organic diversion 40–80 t 150–400 t
Cumulative 12-month diversion — 1,200–3,200 t
Methane abatement (12 mo) — ~12–32 t CH₄
Net emissions avoided (12 mo) — 900–2,400 tCO₂e

Methodology note. Emissions avoided are calculated using a conservative factor of approximately 0.75 tCO₂e avoided per tonne of wet organic waste diverted from anaerobic landfill conditions, consistent with the CDM/Verra AMS-III.F approach for composting. Final figures will be established by independent audit under Milestone 3 rather than self-reported.

Territorial and social outcomes:

  • Coverage across the city’s principal waste-generating communes, with node-level data on what each collection point actually receives
  • Direct digital integration and transparent per-kilogram compensation for urban recycler cooperatives
  • The first auditable dataset of urban organic waste flows in Argentina

5. Milestones, Budget & Tranche Release Conditions ($48,500 USD)

Funds are requested in three tranches. No tranche releases until the release conditions of the prior tranche are met and independently verifiable. Where possible, verification is on-chain rather than by narrative report.

Tranche 1 — $20,000 USD (released on approval)

Software Infrastructure & Smart Kit Production

  • Full development of the Eco-Rider mobile application for urban collectors (iOS/Android)
  • Backend API upgrades to oliviacirculab.com.ar and integration of Celo smart contracts for automated Proof-of-Diversion logging
  • Manufacturing and QR/NFC tagging of 600+ smart organic recycling bins (30L/50L) for residential buildings

Release conditions for Tranche 2:

  1. Eco-Rider application published and publicly downloadable on iOS and Android
  2. Proof-of-Diversion smart contracts deployed and source-verified on Celo mainnet, with verification shared with the grant committee
  3. Delivery documentation for the bin production run
  4. Confirmed final list of the 25 deployment sites

Tranche 2 — $18,500 USD (released on verified software delivery)

IoT Scale Deployment & Cooperative Integration

  • Procurement, assembly and 4G M2M connectivity setup for 25 IoT smart scale hardware modules
  • Field installation across 21 municipal collection points and 4 cooperative sorting centers
  • Onboarding and operational workshops for cooperative workers

Release conditions for Tranche 3:

  1. Minimum 20 of 25 nodes registered on-chain and transmitting hardware-signed telemetry
  2. Node registry queryable from the deployed contract
  3. Minimum 30 consecutive days of continuous telemetry from registered nodes
  4. Cooperative onboarding completed and documented

Tranche 3 — $10,000 USD (released on verified deployment)

Full Pilot Execution & ReFi Incentive Rollout

  • Commercial rollout of the Eco-Rider last-mile collection service in CABA residential buildings
  • 12 months of 4G M2M telemetry, cloud infrastructure maintenance, and independent climate impact auditing
  • Issuance of hardware-backed impact certificates and ReFi incentive distribution on Celo

Completion criteria:

  1. Cumulative diversion volume threshold reached and verifiable on-chain
  2. Independent climate impact audit delivered
  3. ReFi incentive distribution executed and auditable on Celo

We are open to agreeing the specific thresholds, proportions and verification mechanism with the Prezenti team at the point of approval. The principle we are committing to is that release should depend on machine-verifiable records rather than on our own reporting.

6. Why Celo

Our verification records, incentive distribution and future carbon credit issuance all settle on Celo. This means the network captures value from the environmental assets the project originates, not only from grant spend. As the dataset matures toward Verra certification in 2027, the underlying Proof-of-Diversion records — and the credits derived from them — remain native to Celo.

7. Project Links & Team

  • Official Website & Live MVP: https://oliviacirculab.com.ar
  • Lead Entity: Circulab Tech SAS / Olivia Circulab
  • Contact: hola@oliviacirculab.com.ar

We are excited to join the Celo ecosystem and demonstrate how DePIN hardware networks can drive real-world climate action in Latin America. We look forward to continued feedback from the Celo community and the Prezenti team.

2

Hi, would the Olivia Circulab team consider CELO Blockchain as an investor as per your website on the topic of seed funding? Curious if this could be reciprocal benefit if that’s the case, if so, could the proposal be re-written to state this.

separately, could the proposal be re-written to allow the additional milestone funding to unlock only when milestones are met? Releasing funds in tranches would lend a level of visibility that would be beneficial.

3

Hi @ttghi — thank you for the careful read. Both points were well taken and the proposal above has been updated accordingly.

On milestone-gated tranches: fully agreed, and we prefer it structured that way. Section 5 now specifies three tranches where no tranche releases until the prior one is independently verifiable:

  • Tranche 1 — $20,000 (on approval). Software and kit production. Releases Tranche 2 only once the Eco-Rider app is publicly downloadable on both stores, the Proof-of-Diversion contracts are deployed and source-verified on Celo mainnet, bin production delivery is documented, and the final list of 25 deployment sites is confirmed.

  • Tranche 2 — $18,500 (on verified software delivery). IoT hardware and field deployment. Releases Tranche 3 only once a minimum of 20 of 25 nodes are registered on-chain, the node registry is queryable from the deployed contract, and there have been at least 30 consecutive days of continuous hardware-signed telemetry.

  • Tranche 3 — $10,000 (on verified deployment). Pilot execution, independent climate audit and ReFi distribution, completed against an on-chain diversion volume threshold.

The reason we are comfortable committing to this is structural: in a DePIN project the milestones are not self-reported. Every node registration and every kilogram logged is a timestamped, hardware-signed record. We would rather those records be verified than take our word for it, and we are open to agreeing the specific thresholds, proportions and verification mechanism with the Prezenti team at the point of approval.

We also took the revision as an opportunity to tighten two other things: deployment site language now reflects the actual stage of each agreement rather than presenting all sites as settled, and the impact projections have been restated as a ramped 12-month target with the emissions methodology and conversion factor stated explicitly, so the numbers can be checked rather than assumed.

On Celo as an investor: we appreciate the question and we are genuinely open to the conversation. We are raising a seed round, and the alignment is real — our Proof-of-Diversion records, incentive distribution and future carbon credit issuance all settle on Celo, so the network would capture value from the environmental assets the project originates rather than only from grant spend. We added a short “Why Celo” section to make that reasoning explicit.

What we would rather not do is state investment terms in the proposal ahead of an actual conversation — that would not be fair to Celo or to the other parties in our round. If you can point us to the right process or contact on the Celo side, we will follow up directly.

Thank you again for the constructive feedback. It made the proposal materially better.

JP Sanguinetti — Olivia Circulab

4

Thank you for this thoughtful reply and updated proposal. There is a Celo Governance Working Group that hosts regular calls. Here’s a forum link to the most recent call on August 6 2026, Celo Govenance Call #95 | Aug 6th, 2026 , as example.

To progress this, it may help to join the next call and present there. The organizers are a very helpful and knowledgeable group of people, including here for ease Governance Working Group individuals (@0xj4an-work @Wade @0xGoldo @KateNora)

5

Thanks for your post @OLIVIACirculab.

Generally proposals like this would go through previously the foundation and/or Prezenti. Prezenti is the only open grant distribution process at this stage. Their proposal just passed so I would keep an eye on their twitter and the forum for more information about their offerings for Season 3 and see how your project may fit in to their programs.

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6

Thank you for the clear guidance — that helps us understand where the actual door is.

We read the Season 3 plan in full before replying. Being honest about the fit rather than reshaping the proposal to squeeze into a pool: as things stand today, we do not think Olivia fits cleanly into any of the three.

Boost is invite-only and DevRel-sourced, so it is not something we can apply to.

Frontier is scoped to agent infrastructure — agent identity and discovery, agent-to-agent rails, AI-native tooling — with eligibility requiring ERC-8004 registration, Self Protocol Agent ID and verifiable on-chain activity. We are a physical hardware MRV network. We could describe our verification nodes in agentic language, but that would be dressing up the project rather than describing it, and we would rather not do that with a team that gives rubric-tied feedback to 56 rejected applicants.

Anchor requires the Stage 2 profile with verifiable daily transaction volume. We have zero on-chain transactions today. That is precisely what this deployment would create, but we understand the order of operations: traction first, Anchor after.

So two questions, both genuine:

1. The Season 3 design mentions the Reserve may capitalize a new pool if a clear category signal emerges mid-season, as Frontier did. Does Prezenti see any climate, RWA or physical-infrastructure signal in the application flow, or is the ecosystem’s builder energy currently concentrated enough in AI/agents that this is not on the horizon for Season 3? We would rather know that plainly than keep a proposal open against a category that does not exist.

2. If the answer is “not this season,” what would make Olivia a credible Anchor candidate later? Our reading is that we would need our Proof-of-Diversion contracts live on Celo mainnet with sustained, verifiable transaction volume from real physical deployments. If there is a specific threshold or evidence standard you would want to see, we would rather build toward the actual bar than guess at it.

We are proceeding with the Buenos Aires deployment regardless — the funding path affects our timeline, not the project. Our verification records are being architected to settle on Celo either way, so if a category does open up, we would like to be a project you already know rather than a cold application.

We will also take up @ttghi’s suggestion and join a Governance Working Group call to introduce the project properly.

Thank you both for the time and the straight answers.

JP Sanguinetti — Olivia Circulab