cLabs, the core developer behind the Celo CELO
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blockchain, has proposed the expected Ethereum Layer-2 solution on the 
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The move to migrate Celo from its current Layer 1 network to an Ethereum Layer 2 network was confirmed after receiving feedback from the community approval through a board vote last July, marking a major change in the project’s evolution.
The team has now decided to develop Layer 2 on the OP Stack, the main toolkit for developing chains within the Optimism ecosystem. This followed an eight-month period of evaluation and testing of various scaling technologies and software packages, including Arbitrum Orbit, zkSync’s ZK Stack and Polygon CDK.
OP Labs, the main contributor to the Optimism ecosystem, offers a development software stack known as the OP Stack, which allows developers to launch their own Layer 2 blockchains.
The company plans to deploy a testnet for the Celo Layer 2 in summer 2024, following a new round of community voting.
The migration to the Optimism ecosystem will be a step toward integrating Celo into Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem, which includes OP Mainnet, Base, Zora, Mode, and others. Worldcoin, the digital identity network founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, is also developing a Layer 2 network on the OP Stack.
OP Mainnet and other chains in the Optimism ecosystem use a scaling solution called optimistic deployment rollups. This technology aggregates Ethereum transactions on a secondary off-chain layer and enables cheaper transaction processing to address scalability issues on Ethereum.
cLabs stated in its proposal that Celo’s migration to OP Stack-based Layer 2 will focus on maintaining the network’s distinctive features and improving performance. Proposed improvements include a reduction in block time from 5 seconds to 2 seconds and a 50% increase in throughput.
Celo is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain that raised $30 million in 2019 from leading venture capital firms such as a16z and Polychain Capital. In 2021, it closed another $20 million round. The network hosts a variety of applications, from popular Ethereum-based dApps such as Uniswap and Sushiswap to native projects such as Valora, Mento and UbeSwap.
