Crypto custodian Anchorage to support storage and staking for 'Libra rival' Celo's native token

Quick Take

  • Anchorage is set to support storage and staking for “Libra rival” Celo’s native token Celo Gold
  • Anchorage cofounder and president Diogo Monica told The Block: “Anchorage was built precisely for blockchains like Celo, that require active, on-chain governance”

Institutional crypto custodian Anchorage is set to support storage and staking for "Libra rival" Celo's native token when its launches.

Revealing the news exclusively to The Block on Thursday, Anchorage said buyers of the Celo Gold (cGLD) token would be able to custody as well as participate in staking through its platform.

"Anchorage was built precisely for blockchains like Celo, that require active, on-chain governance," Diogo Monica, cofounder and president of Anchorage, told The Block.

Celo is building an open blockchain platform, powered by its native token cGLD. Notably, the token has no relationship to physical gold.

"Similar to how physical gold has traditionally been used as a stability mechanism for the monetary environment, Celo Gold is a deflationary asset that serves as a stability mechanism for the Celo reserve. Just as gold is used to back the U.S. dollar, Celo Gold and a diversified basket of crypto assets back the Celo Dollar and other stablecoins on the Celo platform," Marek Olszewski, cofounder of Celo, told The Block.

Through its blockchain platform, Celo aims to help millions of smartphone owners around the world with accessible financial tools - much like the goal of the Facebook-led Libra project.

But Celo is different from Libra, Olszewski told The Block. "Celo is decentralized, programmable, and customizable — a key distinction from Libra," he said, adding that "a variety of use cases (not just a wallet) will be built on top of Celo," including remittances, humanitarian aid, payments, education and more.

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Celo's mainnet is yet to be released. It will be done in stages throughout the "coming few months," Olszewski told The Block. "The first stage being Release Candidate 1 on April 22. At that time, validators will stand up the release candidate network with production-ready software. Celo Gold, Celo Dollar, and the mobile wallet will go live at later dates."

Celo Dollar is a USD-pegged stablecoin, which is expected to launch in summer 2020, subject to on-chain governance approval, said Olszewski.

Celo could also launch more stablecoins in the future, including a Celo Peso, Olszewski told The Block, adding that "all stablecoins will be backed by the Celo reserve."

Notably, Celo and Libra have some common backers, including Anchorage and Coinbase.

Anchorage's Monica told The Block that both the projects have different technical approaches, but both "share a goal that we firmly believe in: to make financial tools accessible to millions of the world's unbanked."


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.