Celo Blockchain Proposes Return to Ethereum to Become Layer 2

cLabs, the entity behind the Celo blockchain, called for a governance call on July 21 to determine whether the network should transition to an Ethereum Layer 2 chain.

Celo, a Layer 1 blockchain born from a fork of the Ethereum Go language client, could potentially return to the Ethereum ecosystem.

 In a proposal put forth on Celo’s governance forum, cLabs, the entity behind the blockchain, proposed transitioning from being an independent Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible Layer 1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer 2.

The proposed architecture would use Optimism’s OP Stack, but power the decentralized sequencer using Celo’s existing validator set that runs Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus. The off-chain data availability layer would be powered by Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer, which brings danksharding to Ethereum and would enable Celo to maintain low fees.

“From a community standpoint, there would be no changes to existing dApps, no changes to mobile-first features nor the growing regenerative finance (ReFi) stack,” stated the proposal’s authors.

The transition would not impact end users or holders of the blockchain’s native token CELO, who would retain their voting rights for on-chain governance. However, Celo’s validators and full node operators would need to run or access an additional Ethereum node.

For developers, the upgrade will be no different to a blockchain hard fork, but will come with some important improvements like improved security and access to a native bridge to Ethereum.

The cLabs team invited the community to a governance call at 11:00 am ET on July 21 to discuss the proposed changes, after which an indicative on-chain “temperature check” would be put forth.