The Celo blockchain uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The CELO governance asset supports the security, growth, and development of the platform by enabling CELO holders to stake the asset in support of [Celo Validators](https://docs.celo.org/validator), vote on changes or additions to the core technology proposed by community members, and engage directly with dapps on the Celo Platform. Validators play an important role in participating in the consensus mechanism of the Celo Platform. They help secure the Celo network and act independently to verify transactions and propose blocks to add to the blockchain.

CELO governance asset has a fixed supply of one billion. CELO assets in circulation are split between the Mento Reserve and a community of CELO holders.

Celo is a carbon-negative, permissionless blockchain that supports the CELO governance asset and other ERC-20 Mento stable assets, which may be used to pay for transaction fees. With its interoperability, cross-chain compatibility, and mission to create the conditions of prosperity for all, Celo is capable of bringing the regenerative finance (ReFi) movement mainstream by accelerating global financial inclusion, community commerce, and climate-positive technology across multiple ecosystems in parallel. Importantly, Celo is also one of the world’s first [[carbon-negative] blockchains](https://blog.celo.org/a-carbon-negative-blockchain-its-here-and-it-s-celo-60228de36490). Its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism requires a small fraction of the energy used by proof-of-work chains. The Celo community’s commitment to the planet goes even further, as an integral partner in the [Climate Collective](https://climatecollective.org/), an expanding coalition of companies building at the intersection of Web3 and climate action. The [Mento Reserve](https://reserve.mento.org/), supported by the Mento Protocol, which allows access to various stable assets to users on the Celo blockchain, further holds a diversified portfolio of digital assets, with plans to have 40% of the Reserve represented by natural capital-backed assets in four years’ time. Another unique feature of Celo is its mobile-first design, which can help reach billions of global users at scale. This includes a light-client syncing mechanism called [Plumo](https://docs.celo.org/protocol/plumo), a zk-SNARK-based system that allows Celo mobile and resource-constrained users to sync to the Celo blockchain faster, while using only a few kilobytes of data; mapping encrypted phone numbers to wallet addresses (so users can send digital assets to friends and family in their contact lists); or accessing an ecosystem of dapps, like the [Valora Wallet](https://valoraapp.com/), via low-powered smartphone devices. Each of these makes transacting on the blockchain easier for real world users of all experience levels. To learn more about Celo’s uniqueness, visit the [Celo library of technical documentation](https://docs.celo.org/) and [Github](https://github.com/celo-org).

Celo was co-founded in 2017 by [Rene Reinsberg](https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinsberg/), now President of the Celo Foundation; [Marek Olszewski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marekolszewski/), current Chief Technology Officer at cLabs; and [Sep Kamvar](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdk12345/), computer scientist, artist, and former professor at MIT Media Lab.

[Celo](https://celo.org/) is a carbon-negative, permissionless, blockchain with a rich ecosystem of global partners building innovative Web3 dapps to support a more inclusive financial system. Accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, the Celo ecosystem consists of a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (the Celo platform), CELO governance asset, and several [Mento](https://www.mento.org/) stable assets (cUSD, cEUR, cREAL) that allow for real-world users to use digital assets. The open source [Celo mainnet launched on Earth Day 2020](https://blog.celo.org/its-official-celo-mainnet-is-here-6a3a71763f68#:~:text=Celo%20native%20asset%20transfers%20enabled,April%2022%2C%20is%20officially%20Mainnet!). The Celo community [passed](https://celo.stake.id/#/proposal/116) an indicative on-chain governance [proposal](https://forum.celo.org/t/clabs-proposal-for-celo-to-transition-to-an-ethereum-l2/6109) (temperature check) to have Celo migrate to an Ethereum layer-2. Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and many others run validators on the Celo Platform. Today, the Platform supports 1,000+ projects in over 150 countries are building on Celo to, helping to create the conditions of prosperity for all. For more information, please visit [Celo.org](https://celo.org/).