Executive Summary
Since the formation of Stabila Foundation in May 2024, it has made great progress in bolstering the stablecoin ecosystem on Celo. Through various incentive campaigns, partnerships with platforms like Merkl, TrustWallet, and Valora, and educating both retail and institutional users, Stabila has boosted the depth of stablecoin assets onchain.
During this period, stablecoin supply on Celo has grown from roughly $98M to more than $298M while monthly stablecoin transfer volumes have grown from $671M to $1.7B. With over 10 stablecoins natively live, Celo has truly established itself as the home for stablecoins.
Since July, as part of efforts to educate users and increase the overall availability of Celo stablecoins onchain, Stabila has seen over $5.1 million in new stablecoin value added to Uniswap V3 pools that are part of a Merkl campaign, with $200M+ monthly volumes in those pools alone. Stabila has run successful campaigns educating new users with TrustWallet, and an ongoing campaign with Valora while also supporting greater institutional adoption of Celo stablecoins through our engagement with centralized service providers like OTCs and CEXs. Looking ahead, we plan to launch an FX perpetual market, bring new stablecoins and FX pairs to Celo, and grow our list of partnerships to keep up the momentum.
Introduction
The Stabila Foundation has been hard at work since May, focused on strengthening the stablecoin ecosystem on Celo. Stabila’s mission is to deepen the availability of Celo native stablecoins, enhance utility for both retail and institutional users, and foster connections across platforms. This report highlights what Stabila has accomplished so far, ongoing initiatives, and what’s next on the roadmap.
You’ll read about the key campaigns—some still running, some completed—and insights from partners, and also dive into what’s on the horizon, including the launch of an FX perpetual market and the addition of new stablecoin currencies.
Partnerships
The Stabila Foundation officially made its launch announcement on August 29th. Stabila is proud to have established partnerships with key industry leaders that are shaping the future of DeFi and stablecoin adoption. Stabila’s collaboration with Merkl has fueled significant growth on Uniswap V3, particularly through the onchain FX campaign. Ichi through its Automated Liquidity Management (ALM) solution and single-token stablecoin vault has been pivotal in Stabila’s efforts in driving increased adoption and use of Celo-native stablecoins. And Steer, another key ALM, has partnered with Stabila to increase user engagement and retention for Celo-native Smart Pools. Both Ichi and Steer have played an important role in driving efficient deployment for retail and institutional liquidity providers on Uniswap V3.
Valora continues to be a vital partner, enabling easy and seamless sending and receiving of stablecoins for everyday users, while AllBridge has made it easy for USDT and USDC users on other blockchain to access USDT on Celo. Stabila also has support from Wormhole and is exploring more avenues for cross-chain USDT transfer with them. Stabila’s partnership with Mento is particularly significant, especially when it comes to local currencies like cEUR, cKES, eXOF and cREAL – it’s exciting how Mento is building usage for stablecoins for everyday people, making sure stablecoins work in real-world situations.
Artemis has enabled tracking of Celo stablecoin data. With their stablecoin dashboard, Artemis has made it easier for the ecosystem to track stablecoins on Celo. Stabila is proud to partner with them on this to ensure stablecoin data for the Celo ecosystem is up to date.
Stabila is also thankful for the support of Verda Ventures and Climate Collective. They have played a key role in making sure stablecoin assets are more efficiently utilized onchain, ultimately driving more demand for Celo-native stablecoins.
Current Initiatives
On-chain FX spot market
The on-chain FX spot market on Uniswap V3, incentivized through the Merkl platform has been one of Stabila’s most effective ways to drive stablecoin liquidity and volume. Since launching in July, this initiative has focused on increasing usage for Celo stablecoin pairs on-chain. So far, over a 11 week period, TVL across 20 pools (and growing) included in the campaign increased from $2.4M to $7.5M (+$5.1M in TVL), generating over $200M in monthly trading volume on Uniswap V3.
As of Sep 30th, a total of $426,431 worth CELO units have been used in the program, deployed weekly. This is equivalent to 875,680 CELO in total over this period of time. The campaigns run weekly, currently in its 11th week.
The Artemis stablecoin dashboard gives a good overview of the impact on volumes. Since July, there has been a remarkable increase in the volumes for all stablecoins on Celo. In fact the growth in non-USD stablecoins has been faster. For eg: cKES volumes increased from ~$290.7k in June to ~ $24.6M (8362% Increase) at the end of September, cREAL from ~ $768.2K to ~$22.9M (2,881% Increase) as of end of September.
Artemis highlighted the sharp rise in stablecoin volumes on Celo, which has been a huge win.
Uniswap also gave a shoutout, showing the significant growth in Celo’s volumes.
Valora x Tether x Stabila Campaign: Ongoing and Growing
Our partnership with Valora and Tether is still in full swing, helping users learn and earn USDT on Celo. By integrating USDT alongside Celo’s native stablecoins, Valora has become an easy go-to wallet for everyday stablecoin transactions. The campaign aims to bring in new users on Valora from emerging markets to USDT. As the campaign is still early, we are waiting on more data to talk about impact. Nevertheless, a standout has been the increase in USDT holders from 26,068 to 72,366 since the start of the campaign. A significant number of this can be attributed to the ongoing campaign.
Overall Stabila has allocated 70,000 USDT to this campaign that will run from Sep-Dec 2024.
Completed Campaigns
TrustWallet Campaign: A Retail Push
The TrustWallet campaign, July 26th-August 9th, was all about educating retail users and making it easy for them to swap in to Celo USDT. With a $50,000 worth CELO reward pool, this campaign successfully brought in thousands of new users who participated in stablecoin swaps. The campaign saw total cross chain swaps ($USD) of $286,849.23 with participation from 4,766 Trust Wallet Users. 1,734 TrustWallet users qualified for rewards with 3 transactions over $10.
The campaign saw 4.1M discover section views within the TrustWallet app, 1.74M social impressions with 874k on x.com – raising awareness of USDT on Celo.
An additional positive impact of the campaign was the increase in USDT TVL on Allbridge. At the start of the campaign the TVL was $70K, which increased to as high as $330K before settling down at its current levels of ~ $190K.
In total, Stabila spent 84,886 CELO on this campaign.
Centralized service providers
As part of growing awareness among centralized service providers and institutions, Stabila has been working with CEXs, OTCs and their clients to support Celo stablecoins and move some of the institutional liquidity on stablecoins to Celo. Stabila conducted a 6 week long OTC pilot program. Stabila collaborated with 5 OTC desks on an OTC rebate and education campaign targeting institutional clients to settle stablecoins on Celo.
Impact:
- During the campaign, 22 unique institutional clients settled stablecoins on Celo, generating over $78M in on-chain volume during the 6-week pilot program.
General institutional client behavior/insights:
- Most B2B transactions in Africa are gasless, typically CEX-to-CEX wallet transfers.
- Increased demand for Celo USDT during this pilot boosted USDT supply on exchanges like Binance, ByBit, and Gate.
- Some OTCs needed a white glove approach for onboarding clients, cases include in-person walkthrough on receiving stablecoins on Celo.
- Rebates allowed OTC desks to hold competitive rates longer for clients.
- Generally positive feedback from OTC participants, who expressed interest in a longer-term pilot to onboard more clients onto Celo.
Key Takeaways
Here’s what we’ve learned so far:
Liquidity Incentives Pay Off: The Merkl campaign showed us that LP rewards are effective to drive liquidity. There is substantial growth in both TVL and volumes, proving that these incentives work.
Retail Education is Key: Campaigns like the one with TrustWallet and the ongoing Valora campaign have been instrumental in bringing new users into the ecosystem. Keeping things user-friendly and rewarding makes a big difference in adoption.
Institutional Liquidity Matters: The OTC program revealed that institutions are willing to support Celo stablecoins but may require additional guidance and education when onboarding. Developing strong ambassadors among these institutional clients can create a network effect, encouraging their upstream and downstream partners to adopt and transact on Celo.
Challenges
Of course, we’ve run into a few challenges along the way:
Scaling Liquidity: While we’ve made strong progress, scaling liquidity even further remains a challenge. We’re working on refining incentives and expanding partnerships to keep things moving.
Building Awareness: Not everyone is aware of Celo’s stablecoins and their utility. Although our campaigns have helped, there’s still work to be done in raising awareness among institutions and everyday users.
What’s Next?
FX Perpetual Market
Next up, Stabila is working with a partner to launch an FX perpetual market on Celo. This will let users trade perpetual contracts on FX pairs, providing more trading options and helping to deepen liquidity. It’s a big move for bringing more FX use cases on Celo, and we’re excited to see how it impacts the ecosystem.
New Stablecoin Currencies and FX Pairs
We’re also introducing more stablecoin currencies and expanding the number of available FX pairs. This will bring more assets for the on-chain FX sport markets and more regional and local use cases for stablecoins.
Quests
Stabila will be working with leading quest providers to launch new quests on different DeFi platforms that educate users to trade and LP stablecoins on Celo. Stabila has already started work on this and will be making announcements in the coming weeks.
Overall Spend
| Category | USD Value | cUSD disbursed | USDT disbursed | USDC disbursed | CELO Disbursed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stabila Foundation Setup cost | $10,435 | 10,435 | NA | NA | NA | Completed |
| Stabila Foundation Legal | $15,225 | 15,225 | NA | NA | NA | Completed |
| Merkl campaign | $426,431 | NA | NA | NA | 875,680 | Ongoing |
| Valora USDT | $21,667 | NA | 21,667 | NA | NA | Ongoing |
| CEX and OTC campaigns | $311,112 | NA | 29,236 | NA | 514,002 | Completed |
| TrustWallet | $37,350 | NA | NA | NA | 84,886 | Completed |
| Layer 3 Quest | $3,333 | NA | NA | 3,333 | NA | Completed |
*As of Oct 3rd, 2024
Total CELO allocated to ongoing and completed programs is: 1,693,459 CELO
Total CELO deployed: 1,512,142 CELO
Conclusion
Overall, the Stabila Foundation has made great progress in supporting the growth of the stablecoin ecosystem on Celo. Ongoing campaigns like Merkl and Valora are continuing to add to stablecoin depth onchain and drive user awareness, while completed initiatives like TrustWallet and the OTC Pilot program have helped lay a strong foundation for the future. Stabila will be laser focused on the launch of a FX perpetual market, adding new stablecoins, and expanding partnerships. The next steps are exciting, and the future looks promising!