As #Ethereum emerges as the actual "Eth killer", 
@CeloOrg
 announces plans to migrate to an Eth L2 leveraging the open source rollup SDK from 
@optimismFND
 known as the OP Stack https://forum.celo.org/t/clabs-proposal-for-celo-to-transition-to-an-ethereum-l2/6109 🧵

Empowering humanity with better incentives.

As #Ethereum emerges as the actual "Eth killer", 
@CeloOrg
 announces plans to migrate to an Eth L2 leveraging the open source rollup SDK from 
@undefinedFND
 known as the OP Stack https://forum.celo.org/t/clabs-proposal-for-celo-to-transition-to-an-ethereum-l2/6109 🧵

Technical founder and web3 believer. Former COO @ElectricCoinCo, CSO @SendGrid & founding CEO @JumpCloud.

The EVM compatible L1 space got crowded, and Celo failed to get meaningful traction with the "Venmo for crypto" vision, in part due to US regulatory friction around the cUSD stablecoin.

If @jpm
 (which was a Celo seed investor via Coinbase Ventures) had listed cUSD and incorporated it into the Coinbase Card, it would have been easy for normal people to use cUSD to pay for goods and services from their phones, much like they do with Venmo today.

Fast forward to the present: the Merge was successful, Coinbase is building Base on the OP Stack, and Ethereum's rollup-centric-roadmap is coming into focus.

As Ethereum's position as the 'settlement layer' of the new rollup-centric digital economy solidifies, now is the time for Celo to break from the long tail of alt L1's and migrate to an L2 on Ethereum, leveraging the OP Stack.

One of the biggest criticisms of Optimism to date are the centralized (singular) sequencer. The Celo teams plan to lean into the (as yet unsolved) engineering challengesof creating a decentralized sequencer.

In theory, Celo's existing ecosystem of (reasonably) decentralized validators could participate in BFT consensus, plugging into the OP Stack's planned modular sequencer framework.

In theory, Celo's existing ecosystem of (reasonably) decentralized validators could participate in BFT consensus, plugging into the OP Stack's planned modular sequencer framework. https://stack.optimism.io/docs/understand/landscape/#sequencing

Such an engineering feat could likely raise the bar considerably on the emerging ecosystem of shared sequencers, which is innovating quickly:

Such an engineering feat could likely raise the bar considerably on the emerging ecosystem of shared sequencers, which is innovating quickly: https://bridgeharris.substack.com/p/a-primer-on-shared-sequencers

Interestingly, many of the players in the shared sequencer space are leveraging threshold encryption to mitigate MEV, which resonates with my belief that **MEV is a bug, not a feature**.

Finally, there's the question of whether Celo should embrace an Optimistic or ZK backed rollup architecture.

While the optimistic rollups (Optimism, Arbitrum) have been dominating the ecosystem (in terms of TVL) to date, many believe that ZK rollups are better, mostly because they trade increased complexity for better UX (near instant withdrawals).

In short, proving that something is true (eg a validity proof asserted in zero knowledge) is more effective and efficient than waiting around for somebody to assert that something is false (eg a fraud proof to dispute an optimistic transaction).

While Optimism and the OP Stack were quick to embrace the optimistic approach, they appear to be in the process of supporting ZK based validity proofs.  This is huge.

https://stack.optimism.io/docs/understand/landscape/#settlement-layer

TL;DR: The Celo L1 is planning to become an L2 on Ethereum, leveraging the open source OP Stack.  There are many technical, political, and cryptoeconomic questions yet to be answered, but I believe that this is good for Celo, good for Ethereum, and good for users.

Celo launched in 2018 as a carbon-neutral, mobile-first, high performance low fee network that launched EVM compatible proof-of-stake long before "The Merge" came into focus.