[Temp Check] Scale Uniswap Liquidity on Celo

Temperature Check
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Link to Snapshot: https://snapshot.box/#/s:uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xb7218cdbaab203872d4f17d161d84ad04f8b35ab6d8254d6786ca18d9893fe40

TLDR:

On behalf of the Stabila Foundation, this proposal requests $250k in UNI incentives for six months to support seven key stablecoin-related pools on Celo, alongside $105k for Oku deployment and maintenance.

The Stabila Foundation, a community-driven initiative focused on stablecoin adoption, will contribute $500k in CELO incentives to amplify the impact of this initiative. Through Merkl, Stabila has already deployed over $730k in CELO incentives, contributing to the 5680% growth in Uniswap volumes on Celo—from $86.5M in 2023 to $5B+ in 2024 (YTD) — establishing Celo as the 7th largest chain by trading volume.

Celo is home to 13 native stablecoins—including USDT, USDC, and regional stables like BRLA and cKES—and is uniquely positioned to become a global hub for stablecoins. This proposal will deepen liquidity and attract diverse LPs to expand Uniswap’s reach into emerging markets. In turn, unlocking new opportunities for growth to establish a meaningful, long-term partnership with Uniswap DAO.

GFX Labs will be sponsoring this Proposal

About Celo

Celo is a mobile-first, EVM-compatible blockchain focused on global financial inclusion, particularly in emerging markets. Empowering users across 150+ countries, Celo facilitates fast, affordable transactions through DeFi solutions tailored to underserved regions. Its diverse stablecoin ecosystem featuring 13 native stablecoins, including USDT, USDC, cEUR, BRLA, COPM, and cKES, bridges digital assets with real-world use cases such as remittances and cross-border payments.

Celo is transitioning to an Ethereum L2 on the OP Stack, with migration scheduled via hard fork in Q1 2025. This shift enhances scalability, security, and interoperability with Ethereum while retaining Celo’s mobile-first infrastructure. Importantly, dApps like Uniswap will experience no disruption during the migration, ensuring business as usual for liquidity providers and traders.

Upon joining the OP Superchain, Celo anticipates renewed ecosystem momentum by leveraging unique features such as gas payments in stablecoins (USDT, USDC, cUSD) and Social Connect, which enables asset transfers via phone numbers—further boosting accessibility and adoption.

Celo’s mobile-first approach uniquely positions itself to reach users in emerging markets, where mobile access is often the primary means of connecting to financial services. Key partnerships driving this adoption include:

  • Opera MiniPay, a Celo stablecoin wallet with 3.5M+ users, integrated into the Opera Mini mobile browser, which has over 100M monthly active users in Africa.
  • Valora, a Celo-native wallet with 1M+ installs, is driving significant adoption in mobile-first regions.

Along with other partnerships, these have solidified Celo’s position as a leader in the global stablecoin ecosystem. With over 600k+ daily active users (DAUs), Celo ranks among the top 10 blockchains by user engagement (Source: Token Terminal).

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Learn more about Celo at Celo.org and explore stablecoin usage data on Artemis.

Background on Uniswap v3 on Celo:

Uniswap v3 has been Celo’s long-standing partner since its deployment in July 2022, unlocking new liquidity and trading opportunities in emerging markets. The Stabila Foundation has played a pivotal role in this success, distributing over $730k in CELO rewards through Merkl to incentivize 24 stablecoin-related pools, with ongoing campaigns: Merkl Campaign on Celo.

These efforts have driven a 5680% increase in Uniswap volumes on Celo—from $86.5M in 2023 to $5B+ in 2024 (YTD )— elevating Celo to become the 7th largest blockchain by volume. This traction has attracted new stablecoin issuers to launch on Celo and fostered the creation of additional stablecoin-stablecoin Uniswap pools, which are essential for expanding liquidity and improving financial access.

This proposal builds on these successes and underscores Stabila’s commitment to fostering a deeper, long-term partnership with Uniswap DAO. Together, we can scale stablecoin liquidity and attract new issuers and LPs. By combining the strengths of both ecosystems, this partnership will help expand financial access in underserved regions and drive global growth and adoption.

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Source: https://x.com/Uniswap/status/1861071364871893262

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Source: https://app.uniswap.org/explore/pools/celo

Proposed Plan:

To further scale liquidity and strengthen Uniswap v3’s deployment on Celo, we propose the following:

1. Direct UNI Incentives (6-Month Program):

The requested $250k in UNI incentives will target seven key Uniswap v3 pools:

  1. USDT/USDC (0.01%) - 30% of incentives
  2. USDT/cUSD (0.01%) - 20% of incentives
  3. USDT/cEUR (0.01%) - 15% of incentives
  4. USDT/CELO (0.01%) - 15% of incentives
  5. USDT/cKES (0.01%) - 10% of incentives
  6. USDT/COPM (0.01%) - 5% of incentives
  7. USDT/BRLA (0.01%) - 5% of incentives

These pools are strategically selected to deepen liquidity, support regional stablecoins, and strengthen Celo’s ecosystem by enabling microloans, cross-border payments, and remittances in underserved regions.

  • cUSD is the most widely used stablecoin on Opera MiniPay
  • cEUR is popular among Valora users
  • cKES supports Haraka Finance in facilitating microloans in Kenya
  • COPM and BRLA are leading fiat-backed stablecoins in their respective markets.

2. Oku Deployment:

Although Celo is currently available on the Uniswap interface, our community would find value in Oku’s Uniswap v3 analytics, advanced trading interface for Forex traders, liquidity provisioning and position management, on/off-ramping, and bridging to offer Celo users a complete experience.

Amplified Impact:

To amplify impact, Stabila will contribute $500k in CELO Merkl incentives, effectively matching Uniswap DAO’s $250k UNI incentive contribution at a 1.4:1 ratio when factoring in Uniswap DAO’s total $355k commitment, which includes $105k for Oku deployment and maintenance. This ensures robust participation, liquidity growth, and sustained ecosystem support.

Timing:

Upon approval, Stabila Foundation will coordinate with the Oku team and the Accountability Committee to integrate Oku into Celo, enabling enhanced cross-chain liquidity and market access. The CELO and UNI incentives will commence after Celo’s L2 migration in Q1 2025, ensuring both initiatives align to drive liquidity growth effectively.

Budget:

  • $250k in UNI incentives for six months (matched by Stabila with $500k in CELO)
  • $45k for Oku integration (one-time payment)
  • $5k/month for 12 months to maintain Oku services

Overall Timeline:

Below is the proposed timeline for delegates’ consideration. The timeline is an estimate and may be extended as needed:

  • Request for Comment (RFC) ends December 16
  • Temperature check December 17-21
  • The onchain vote review period: TBD
  • Onchain voting opens: TBD
  • Oku to go live (one week after the onchain vote ends)
  • Incentives to go live: After Celo’s L2 migration (Q1 2025) and Oku integration are completed.

We look forward to collaborating with Uniswap DAO to expand stablecoin liquidity and establish Celo as a global hub for stablecoins.

Thank you for your consideration,
Stabila Foundation

6 Likes
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While we support Celo’s transition to an Ethereum L2 and appreciate Stabila’s vision, we have some questions regarding the volume metrics presented. Our previous analyses indicate that a portion of the transaction volume may stem from “dusting” activity rather than reflecting sustained user engagement. While we acknowledge the increase in stablecoin transactions—especially for cUSD—we’ve observed a median transaction value around $0.0016 (for cUSD, which is the third dominant asset in the stablecoin market for Celo), which may not necessarily reflect widespread adoption or meaningful usage patterns.

Regarding the pool split for the UNI incentives, we would appreciate more specific usage metrics for cEUR, cKES, COPM, and BRLA. The proposal mentions the use cases for these stablecoins, but including numerical data to support these claims would provide additional clarity.

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We believe this proposal would benefit from more than just active addresses and raw volume figures. A clearer roadmap for Stabila, along with qualitative insights into user acquisition, partner integrations, and the types of real-world use cases being developed, would provide a stronger foundation for understanding the project’s long-term potential. In short, we see promise here, but would welcome additional detail to better gauge the depth and authenticity of the ecosystem’s growth.

3

In addition to Blockworks’ commentary on usage, I would like to raise a concern regarding the type of volume being attracted to the Uniswap V3 deployment on Celo:

A significant portion of the volume appears to come from just a few addresses engaging in arbitrage trading or potentially wash trading against users or pairs.

These are just the addresses I’ve identified from the main explorer page for CELO pairs, and there are likely more.

While I generally support incentive packages for new or established chains, this specific case raises concerns that conflict with the values I prioritize in crypto. Unless a compelling rationale is provided to explain this activity beyond what I’ve inferred, I am inclined to vote against this proposal.

[edit]

I feel compelled to point out that this issue could potentially be mitigated or resolved by shifting the focus of incentives. Instead of targeting the easiest pools for arbitrage or wash trading, it would be more effective to allocate incentives to pools with a higher fee setting (such as 0.05%). This adjustment would reduce noise and impose an economic ‘penalty’ on those engaging in such activities, providing a more accurate reflection of the genuine usage of Uniswap V3 on Celo.

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Agree with @BlockworksResearch, would like to see the strategy used to determine these pools, is it TVL or volume based?

Agree with @pepo that incentives should be given out proportional to fees generated or pools with a higher fee settings

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Thank you for raising these points. I’m happy to provide additional clarification.

The use of cUSD needs to be understood in the context of how Celo enables gas payments using stablecoins (cUSD, USDT, USDC, etc.). A considerable portion of small transactions on the network is attributed to this feature—particularly the use of cUSD for gas fees on MiniPay, onboarding over 4M users since launching in September 2023 and facilitating over 1M P2P transactions in October 2024 alone. To learn more about MiniPay’s users, sharing the links to the #MiniPayChallenge, which shows how shop owners, writers, and more are integrating it into their everyday lives.

Celo’s low transaction costs result in microtransactions for gas payments. For more information, you can refer to Celo’s fee abstraction.

Beyond creating an on-chain FX spot market, we selected non-USD stablecoins to foster real-world use cases in local markets. For example, cEUR is used within Valora, while cKES supports Haraka Finance’s microlending platform, helping Kenyan entrepreneurs raise capital. Additionally, we are discussing with a fintech superapp exploring cKES integration to expand its presence in Kenya.

For COPM and BRLA, prominent stablecoins in their respective markets but new to Celo, we are actively working with the respective issuers to develop local use cases and boost adoption.

Since its formation in May 2024, Stabila has focused on accelerating stablecoin adoption on the Celo blockchain through rewards programs and partnerships with key infrastructure providers to make stablecoins more accessible.

Key initiatives in 2024 complementing Merkl rewards include:

  • Learn-and-Earn campaigns with Valora, Tether, and Trust Wallet.
  • Centralized exchange and on/off-ramp support for Celo stablecoins.
  • Collaborating with local stablecoin issuers to launch assets, including BRLA, COPM, PUSO, and cCOP, with more planned for 2025.
  • Improved data transparency through a partnership with Artemis data terminal
  • Cross-chain swaps enabled by AllBridge, Jumper Exchange, and Rango.
  • Educating OTC desks on settling stablecoin transactions on Celo
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Our goal with this initiative is to establish a functional on-chain FX market on Celo by encouraging low spreads and arbitrage activity, which helps improve price efficiency and concentrated liquidity across FX pairs. This also supports ecosystem use cases like P2P transfers and microlending.

The incentivized 0.01% stablecoin pools were designed for tight price bands across stable assets on Uniswap v3. These pools, already part of Stabila’s Merkl campaigns, were selected for their potential to enhance liquidity further and drive ecosystem growth on Celo.

7

Thanks for that context.

With that in mind, is it possible to see the transaction volume of these stables after accounting for gas payments?

Furthermore, can we have some idea of how we should expect the market for these stablecoins to grow? DeFiLlama states that USDT is the dominant stablecoin now, what’s the plan for cUSD?

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Thank you for this proposal @Michaelcelo!

Watching Celo’s growth this year has been impressive, and really encouraging to see more “real-world” adoption of stables via MiniPay etc. Slight concern over the claims regarding the volume, so would highlight @BlockworksResearch’s question on tx volume data if possible.

A couple of other questions that came to mind:

  • How did you decide on the distribution percentages across the pools, and how does this align with anticipated demand?
  • Do you have any rough projections or KPIs for liquidity, user growth, or trading volume that you’re targeting?
  • Any thoughts on what happens after the six-month program? Is there a long-term strategy to maintain liquidity/activity?

All in all, I think Celo has a unique focus among the L2s and a niche that is well positioned to see continued adoption and growth going forward. Our experience of engaging with some of the Celo contributors has also been nothing but positive.

Overall keen to support this proposal, and looking forward to see how it develops before it goes onchain!

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We have voted in favour of this proposal, you can read our rationale in our delegation thread:

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Blockworks Advisory will be voting AGAINST this proposal, as we would like to see further info prior to moving forward. Our reasoning is evident in our responses throughout this thread.

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Thank you for your support!

The distribution percentages across pools were determined based on accessibility, current demand, and anticipated growth:

  • All pools are paired with USDT, the most accessible stablecoin on Celo, with a 197M supply, listings on major CEXs (e.g., Binance, ByBit, Gate.io), and support from various global and local fiat-to-crypto on/off ramps, including MoonPay, Ramp Network, and Fonbnk.
  • USD stablecoin pairs (USDT/USDC, USDT/cUSD) reflect current market dominance and user preferences, receiving the largest share of incentives.
  • Local stablecoins (cEUR, cKES, COPM, BRLA) have smaller initial allocations, with the potential for growth as partnerships and use cases expand on Celo in the coming quarter. If demand for local stablecoins doesn’t materialize, we plan to adjust allocations iteratively, shifting more incentives toward USD and EUR pools.
  • CELO/USDT was included as a complementary pair in the on-chain FX market due to its strong performance in the current trading environment and ability to create additional trading loops within the FX ecosystem.

Incentives will be deployed iteratively over six months, allowing flexibility to adjust allocations with input and collaboration from the UAC. This gradual approach ensures:

  • Increased awareness of Merkl rewards among new LPs, maximizing the impact of deployed incentives.
  • A scalable distribution model that aligns with TVL, trading volume, and user growth trends month to month.

By the later months of the program, we aim to fully ramp up incentives, targeting the following conservative estimates based on existing and comparable trading volume-to-TVL ratios:

Pools TVL Monthly Trading Volume
USDT/USDC (0.01%) $5M $375M (75x)
USDT/cUSD (0.01%) $3M $225M (75x)
USDT/cEUR (0.01%) $2M $200M (100x)
USDT/CELO (0.01%) $2.5M $625M (250x)
USDT/cKES (0.01%) $750k $94M (125x)
USDT/COPM (0.01%) $400k $60M (150x)
USDT/BRLA (0.01%) $400k $60M (150x)
Total $14M $1.64B

With the launch of Oku and improved UX for Uniswap on Celo, we expect to see an increase in the number of traders, users, and LPs actively participating in these pools.

This proposal marks the beginning of a deeper partnership with the Uniswap DAO and broader community. Post-program, we will present results to the Celo and Uniswap communities (and potential other co-incentive partners) to explore scaling this initiative into a larger, longer-term program.

We appreciate your support and look forward to continued collaboration to strengthen this initiative!