Celo has proposed allocating 160 million CELO tokens to Opera. The grant, equal to 16% of total supply, would reshape the partnership into a long-term strategic alignment.
The Celo proposal would transfer roughly $12 million in tokens from its treasury to Opera, subject to community approval. The move follows an existing agreement where Opera received quarterly grants to support MiniPay, a self-custodial stablecoin wallet integrated into its browser ecosystem.
CeloCoreCo
Will Token Grants Replace Traditional Ecosystem Incentives?
Under the proposed structure, Opera would hold one of the largest CELO positions but agree not to sell the tokens for three years. Celo also plans to cap the associated voting power at 10% of total staked supply to prevent governance concentration, reflecting concerns around decentralization.
The partnership has already driven measurable adoption. Celo reported over 400 million transactions processed through MiniPay, with more than 14 million users across 66 countries and 4.23 million weekly active USD₮ users. By comparison, the earlier agreement allocated approximately $568,182 in CELO per quarter, indicating a shift toward upfront, long-term incentives rather than recurring grants.
Celo stated that Opera’s user base of over 60 million has engaged with Mini Apps and reward systems, positioning them for stablecoin-based transactions within the ecosystem. The new proposal would extend collaboration into Latin America and Southeast Asia, targeting regions with growing demand for low-cost digital payments.
Still, increasing circulating supply to fund the grant introduces potential dilution and governance trade-offs. Market participants will watch the community vote outcome and subsequent token distribution to assess whether large, one-time allocations become a preferred model for scaling user acquisition and ecosystem growth.
