Sustaining and Expanding MiniPay as Celo’s Global Stablecoin Distribution Layer

[opera_minipay]

Proposal Key Aspects

• Receiver Entity: Celo Governance
• Status: [DRAFT]
• Author(s): @opera_minipay
• Type of Request: Funding
  • Intent: Season 2
  • Funding Category: Partnerships
  • Funding Request: $198’782.64 equivalent to 950,211.75 number of $CELO tokens using the 90-day Q4-2025 average closing price ($0.2091982585 per Celo)**

Summary

This proposal requests a governance grant adjustment to enable the completion of the value agreed in the precedent MiniPay Grant Proposal. The proposed amount will complete the Q4-2025 grant, which is currently only partially claimable under the precedent authorization. A separate proposal will be submitted in April 2026 for the final grant for Q1-2026, completing the grant agenda originally approved by the community.

This grant will support continued efforts to scale MiniPay as a global distribution layer for stablecoin-powered applications on Celo, and to accelerate real-world usage via Mini Apps across Africa, LATAM, Southeast Asia, and other high-growth corridors.

Since the original Strategic Grant (approved Q4 2023) and the subsequent authorization of the second half (approved in 2025), MiniPay has expanded substantially in reach and impact—becoming one of the largest and most consistent sources of daily chain activity on Celo, with 12M+ wallet activations, 380M+ transactions processed, and live usage across 66+ countries. Mini Apps inside MiniPay have matured into a high-volume economy that turns stablecoins into everyday money across Africa and LATAM.

This proposal is forward-looking. It focuses on sustaining and extending ecosystem outcomes already being delivered at scale: user adoption, transaction throughput, Mini App distribution, and new stablecoin use cases.

Goals

Over the funding period, MiniPay will focus on outcomes aligned with Celo’s growth intents:

1. Grow real-world transactions on Celo through stablecoin payments and Mini App spend.

2. Expand Mini Apps as a distribution platform (new categories, more builders, deeper retention).

3. Increase stablecoin utility beyond transfers (payments, savings, RWAs like gold, local rails).

4. Strengthen builder pipelines in high-context regions (Africa, LATAM, SEA) through targeted activations and co-marketing pathways.

Motivation

When the original Strategic Grant was approved in 2023, MiniPay was scoped primarily around:

• Expanding stablecoin access in Africa

• Driving early adoption of Celo ecosystem applications

• Proving that embedded wallets could unlock real-world usage

Those objectives were met—and materially exceeded.

Since then, MiniPay has:

• Scaled from early millions of users to 12M+ verified wallet activations

• Processed 380M+ onchain transactions

• Expanded from a handful of African markets to 66+ countries

• Become one of the most active sources of stablecoin usage on Celo, particularly across real-world payment and spend use cases

What began as a distribution experiment has become infrastructure: a stablecoin rail that users, builders, NGOs, freelancers, and local businesses rely on daily. In practice, this infrastructure now accounts for a material share of stablecoin transaction flow, daily active usage, and application-level engagement on Celo.

MiniPay started as a browser-native wallet aimed at onboarding users in Africa. It has since become a cross-platform standalone app(on Android and iOS) and of the most widely used ways to interact with stablecoins onchain—particularly for users who were not previously crypto-native.

This growth has been driven by solving practical, real-world problems:

• Helping freelancers and global citizens get paid reliably

• Enabling families and businesses to move money across borders

• Letting travelers and diaspora communities spend locally

• Giving users simple ways to save safely, including new RWA-style use cases

• Supporting builders with distribution

As MiniPay’s footprint expanded, the ecosystem impact expanded with it. A wallet became a distribution layer, and a distribution layer became a compounding growth engine for Celo-native applications.

This proposal exists because MiniPay is now operating at a scale and geographic scope beyond the original 2023 grant assumptions. Demand for stablecoin rails is accelerating across LATAM, Southeast Asia, and the Global North, and Mini Apps are demonstrating that stablecoins can function as day-to-day money at meaningful scale.

Specification

This proposal supports a continued and expanded scope of ecosystem-facing work delivered through MiniPay. The focus is on sustaining and scaling real-world stablecoin usage, Mini App adoption, and builder distribution through one of the most active user-facing surfaces on the Celo network, where demand has already been demonstrated.

1. Geographic Scope Expanded Beyond Original Assumptions

While Africa remains a core focus, MiniPay’s usage has expanded organically into new regions where stablecoins solve immediate, practical problems. These regions were not part of the original grant scope, but adoption emerged naturally as users sought reliable ways to get paid, send money, spend locally, and save value.

MiniPay now supports meaningful usage across:

• Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)

• Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines)

• U.S. & EU (freelancers, remittances, travel and diaspora use cases)

To support this growth, MiniPay provides:

• Local cash-in and cash-out across 40+ currencies

• 20 on/off-ramp partners integrated globally

• Average cash-in times of under one minute

• Zero-fee on/off-ramps across multiple regions and corridors

Each new region compounds Celo’s global transaction footprint by introducing incremental, non-overlapping user demand and new stablecoin flows onto the network.

2. Mini Apps as a Real Economy

Mini Apps have evolved from a curated experience into a high-volume application layer embedded directly within MiniPay. Today, the Mini App ecosystem generates 20M+ monthly app opens, 200M+ monthly impressions, and millions of user interactions spanning utilities, remittances, gaming, savings, and donations.

Collectively, Mini Apps represent one of the densest concentrations of end-user interaction on Celo, centered on everyday financial activity rather than isolated DeFi usage.

Spend Mini Apps (Utilities & Commerce)

MiniPay users have now spent millions of dollars via Mini Apps on everyday needs such as airtime, data, electricity, vouchers, and local services across Africa and LATAM.

This activity represents stablecoins functioning as everyday money, not speculative assets.

Each transaction:

• Settles on Celo

• Uses stablecoins as the payment currency

• Represents real economic throughput and repeat user behavior

Spend Mini Apps demonstrate that Celo can support high-frequency, low-value payments at scale, a core requirement for real-world adoption.

3. New Use Cases: Real-World Assets & Savings

In Q4 2025, MiniPay launched the Buy Gold Mini App in partnership with Squid Router, enabling users to purchase fractional, tokenized gold (XAUt0) from as little as $1, directly inside MiniPay.

Since launch:

• 60,000+ users have purchased and hold digital gold on Celo

• Hundreds of thousands of gold purchases have been executed

• Many users interacted with tokenized RWAs for the first time

This use case matters because it:

• Introduces a culturally familiar savings asset in key markets

• Creates an accessible entry point into an otherwise complex financial tool

• Expands Celo’s real-world asset footprint

• Demonstrates that DeFi primitives can feel intuitive and accessible to everyday users

The Buy Gold Mini App is a clear example of MiniPay enabling new onchain categories seamlessly, not just increasing transaction counts.

4. Cross-Chain Deposits as a Source of Net-New Liquidity

MiniPay has also become a significant entry point for net-new value flowing onto Celo through native cross-chain deposit functionality.

Through integrated cross-chain deposits, MiniPay enables users to bring assets from 10+ external blockchains and thousands of tokens directly into stablecoins on Celo, without requiring users to understand bridges, routing, or gas mechanics.

This functionality has already facilitated over $4 million in deposits (Q4 2025 alone) in external blockchains and wallets into stablecoins on Celo, largely driven by non-crypto-native users seeking simple, reliable access to stablecoins.

This matters because:

• Liquidity moves into Celo, not just within it

• Users onboard value they already hold elsewhere, lowering switching friction

• Stablecoins on Celo become the destination asset, not an intermediate step

• Cross-chain complexity is abstracted away for everyday users

In practice, cross-chain deposits position MiniPay as a liquidity gateway for Celo, converting external assets into onchain stablecoin activity and downstream application usage.

5. Builders Reaching Scale Through Distribution

MiniPay has become a distribution layer for builders on Celo, allowing teams to focus on building while accessing real users at scale. Integrated Mini Apps receive ongoing support through:

• Continuous co-marketing

• Product and design collaboration

• Business development support

• Three-way strategic partnerships

• Visibility via Opera’s owned advertising inventory

Examples of builder outcomes include:

• BitGifty: 450,000+ active users, hundreds of thousands of utility Airtime and Data sales

• Mdundo: Music subscriptions from over 200,000 music subscriptions sold

• Mavu Microwork: 1.13 million tasks completed

• Subscription Games: Crossed 50,000 subscriptions

• MiniPlay: Reached * millions of users within weeks of launch

• CodeYetu Donations: Global donors funding local education, fully on-chain

MiniPay has also attracted builders from other ecosystems (including Base, World, and others) to launch and scale applications on Celo, further expanding the network’s reach.

Many successful Mini Apps:

• Originated in Celo Camp or hackathons

• Operate primarily or exclusively inside MiniPay

• Publicly credit MiniPay with enabling product–market fit

This is ecosystem leverage: one integration unlocking sustained user adoption, transaction growth, and long-term builder retention.

Metrics & KPIs

MiniPay’s impact on the Celo ecosystem is observable through publicly visible onchain activity, in-app usage patterns, and builder adoption. Rather than prescribing a fixed set of performance targets, MiniPay focuses on tracking and optimizing for signals that reflect real-world usage, sustained engagement, and ecosystem health.

These signals include, but are not limited to:

Adoption & Usage Signals

MiniPay’s growth and reach are reflected through aggregate adoption trends, transaction activity, and geographic expansion. Wallet activations and transaction volumes provide directional insight into how stablecoins are being used in everyday contexts across regions.

Mini Apps Economy

The Mini App ecosystem provides a clear lens into how users interact with Celo-native applications. Engagement signals such as app opens, impressions, and transaction volume illustrate how MiniPay functions as a distribution layer for ecosystem apps and how stablecoins are being used beyond simple transfers.

Spend-oriented Mini Apps, in particular, surface direct evidence of stablecoins operating as day-to-day money through onchain purchases of utilities, services, and digital goods.

Emerging Use Cases

New product categories—such as real-world assets and cross-chain flows—are evaluated based on early adoption patterns, repeat behavior, and qualitative user feedback. For example, engagement with the Buy Gold Mini App highlights demand for intuitive savings instruments and real-world asset exposure within MiniPay.

Builder & Ecosystem Outcomes

Builder success is assessed through a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators, including sustained Mini App usage, visible growth trajectories, and public case studies shared by teams themselves. Many builders operating within MiniPay measure success not just by initial launches, but by ongoing user engagement and long-term viability.

Current Status

MiniPay has already delivered substantial outcomes since the original grant:

• 12M+ wallet activations

• 360M+ transactions processed

• Live in 66+ countries

• Mini Apps scaled to 20M+ monthly opens and 200M+ monthly impressions

• Virtual USD/EUR accounts launched enabling ACH/SEPA payments into MiniPay

• Cross-chain deposits integrated (10+ chains) enabling assets to flow into stablecoins on Celo

• MiniPay Card was prelaunched to become public in H1 2026

As MiniPay transitions from rapid expansion into sustained, global infrastructure, the focus shifts from proving viability to deepening impact, increasing resilience, and compounding onchain activity across the ecosystem. The following outlines MiniPay’s directional focus across near-, mid-, and long-term horizons.

Near-Term Focus: Deepening Usage Where Activity Is Already Concentrated (H1 2026).

• User Density: Drive transaction frequency by prioritizing features like virtual accounts, Pay with MiniPay, cards and Mini Apps surfaces that facilitate daily real-world spending.

• Stablecoin Flow: Secure the stability of ecosystem inflows by improving on-ramp success rates and subsidizing fees in the key transfer corridors.

• Market Operations: Convert high-activity regions into mature markets through targeted investment in local partnerships and support.

Mid-Term Focus: Expanding Economic Surface Area

• New Verticals: Expand the “onchain” definition by launching MiniPay features for savings, RWAs, microwork, and community finance.

• App Distribution: Establish MiniPay as the primary launchpad for Celo apps by refining retention pathways for new developers.

• Liquidity Conversion: Leverage multi-rail capabilities to systematically convert non-native users and assets into Celo-native participants.

Long-Term Focus: A Durable Growth Engine

• Defensibility: Entrench ecosystem alignment by deepening integrations with Opera properties and the Celo application layer.

• Trustless Usability: Eliminate UX complexity without compromising the transparency or composability of Celo chain.

• Sustainable Utility: Build for strictly organic financial utility to ensure usage persists independently of market cycles and short term incentives.

Opera’s Role and Co-Investment

Opera continues to invest significantly beyond ecosystem funding, including a considerable financial investment in dedicated product, design, marketing, and business development resources, as well as owned marketing inventory across Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, and Opera News.

In parallel, Opera has made broader, long-term ecosystem investments aligned with MiniPay’s mission, including several million dollars in backing through initiatives such as Verda Ventures, a fund focused on supporting builders, applications, and infrastructure that drive real-world stablecoin usage on Celo.

As MiniPay expands into new regions, Opera has also grown local and regional teams to support market-specific partnerships, builder engagement, regulatory navigation, and on-the-ground execution. This localized investment is critical to ensuring MiniPay’s expansion translates into sustained usage and real economic activity on Celo.

Community funding is used to amplify ecosystem outcomes. The result is a co-investment model where each ecosystem dollar unlocks materially more distribution, reach, and on-chain usage than standalone grants could achieve.

Why Continued Support Matters Now

MiniPay sits at an inflection point:

• Stablecoins are moving from niche to mainstream

• Regulatory clarity is improving in key markets

• Builders are choosing platforms where distribution is assured

• Users expect crypto to “just work”

The original grant helped unlock adoption, usage, builders, and real economic activity on Celo — and has since grown into one of the ecosystem’s most reliable engines of daily user activity and transaction throughput.

MiniPay has become one of the clearest pathways through which people experience and participate in Celo in their daily lives. Continued partnership ensures that pathway remains open, growing, and grounded in real-world utility.

Funding Breakdown

Request

950’211.75 $CELO

Disbursement

• Funds disbursed to: [0x6f62E32cae54D66e234F0d1e27be7e33896Dc4CE]

• Funds used for ecosystem-facing distribution activities: Mini App growth, co-marketing support, builder activations, and regional expansion initiatives aligned with ecosystem intents.

Reporting

Opera will continue publishing quarterly updates with:

• KPI progress

• Major launches and ecosystem integrations

• Mini App case studies, campaigns, and outcomes

Closing

The original grant helped unlock adoption, usage, builders, and real economic activity on Celo—at a scale few ecosystem initiatives achieve. This request seeks to sustain and extend that momentum, aligned with the ecosystem’s long-term goals.

MiniPay has become one of the clearest pathways through which people experience and participate with Celo in their daily lives. Continued partnership ensures that pathway remains open, growing, and grounded in real-world utility.

[Dee]

Hello MiniPay Team,

It has been incredible to watch MiniPay evolve from an experimental browser feature into a genuine financial lifeline for millions. Your recent updates confirm that you are not just a participant in the Celo ecosystem but a primary driver of its activity.

As you request further grants to fuel this growth, I propose a strategic pivot that aligns with your long-term roadmap: Transitioning Celo from a utility partner to a strategic yield-bearing treasury asset.

I propose a pledge to acquire 5% of the Celo supply (approx. 50M tokens) as a long-term reserve asset. Currently, this would require an allocation of roughly ~$5M, a modest portion of your available cash reserves but it secures a massive strategic advantage:

• Governance Insurance: As MiniPay scales, the Celo network effectively becomes your backend infrastructure. Holding a 5% stake ensures you have the voting power to guide protocol upgrades that favor MiniPay’s user experience and at the same time help shape value accrual mechanism for token holders.

• Value Capture: You are currently the primary engine of Celo’s growth. By holding the asset, you ensure that the value created by your user acquisition accrues back to Opera’s balance sheet

• Asymmetric ROI: Unlike traditional R&D spend which is a sunk cost, this asset has the potential to appreciate alongside your product’s success, potentially turning your infrastructure costs into a profit center.

• The Right Asset: You currently hold a strong cash position (>$119M). Allocating a small fraction (<5%) to the asset that powers your fastest-growing vertical sends a powerful signal to your equity investors that you are capturing the value chain, not just passing through it.

In fact, you have the cash flow ($28.5M operating cash flow in Q3 alone) and the responsible holding intent. A transparent, time-weighted accumulation of CELO would align your corporate equity story with your on-chain reality:

• The Flywheel: Every new user you onboard increases the network’s value. If you hold CELO, your user acquisition costs are subsidized by the staking yield and appreciation of your treasury assets.

• The Re-Rating Signal: your company profile can make a significant shift from an ad-network valuation to a Fintech platform valuation. Nothing signals Fintech Platform more clearly than holding the reserve asset of your own payment rail. It differentiates you instantly from legacy competitors and other fintech platforms.

Right now, you are building the railroad but you don’t own the land underneath it. If Celo becomes the standard for mobile payments, driven by your users, that 5% stake could arguably become as valuable as a standalone business unit.

Unlike MSTR, BMNR or other treasury allocators, you don’t need to fundraise to do this. You have the cash and more importantly, you have the product that drives the asset’s value. Buying the asset creates a virtuous cycle where your operational success directly strengthens your balance sheet.

The market respects builders who have “skin in the game.” An open-market purchase would validate your commitment far more than any press release, creating a reflexivity loop that benefits both the token price and MiniPay’s visibility.

A concrete, low-friction way to start:

• Pilot for 24 months with a strict USD cap (e.g., up to $1-3M total), executed via time-weighted buys to minimize market impact with quarterly reporting (alongside your updates).
• Pair it with a decentralization pledge: delegate broadly, prioritize smaller operators groups, publish voting principles.
• Revisit after a year with lessons learned.

Would love to hear if this is directionally interesting, even as a longer-term thesis. What are your thoughts on making Celo a core part of the Opera balance sheet?

[CeloColombia]

Hello @opera_minipay team

Thank you for the proposal and for the continued work on growing MiniPay as a global stablecoin distribution layer.

From Celo Colombia, we’d like to highlight an important adoption perspective and suggest considering the inclusion of $COPm within this initiative.

For most everyday users, especially in emerging markets people do not think or transact in USD or foreign currencies. If the goal is true mass adoption, local currency support is essential. Users naturally understand prices, salaries, transfers, and savings in their local currency, not in dollars.

In Colombia, this is precisely why $COPm, a Colombian peso denominated stablecoin, is relevant. $COPm has existed on Celo since late 2024 and is backed by Mento.

It already shows real onchain usage, with:

• 245K+ transactions
• Over 1 year of active history
• 13K holders

$COPm is already being used for payments, remittances, and everyday transactions within the ecosystem.

Given this, we don’t see a strong reason for $COPm not to be integrated, especially if MiniPay’s objective is to drive real-world usage at scale. Including $COPm would:

• Reduce cognitive and FX friction for users
• Enable more intuitive P2P payments and merchant use cases
• Improve onboarding and retention in the Colombian market
• Align MiniPay more closely with how people actually transact day to day

Supporting local currency stablecoins like COPm strengthens MiniPay’s position as a truly global product not just a USD centric one and aligns with Celo’s broader vision of serving diverse local economies.

Appreciate the space for discussion and looking forward to your thoughts.

[Thylacine]

which is currently only partially claimable under the precedent authorization

Why was the previous quarterly grant in 2025 partially “unclaimable”? Was the previous authorization made in error?