Opera launches MiniPay, a stablecoin wallet on the Celo blockchain

Opera designed MiniPay in collaboration with the Celo Foundation to make it easier and more affordable for individuals across Africa to acquire and send or receive stablecoin. The focus is on enabling rapid wallet-to-wallet transfers with sub-cent fees using mobile phone numbers and fast onboarding with automatic wallet backup through Google. These developments address some of the key barriers, allowing for a seamless Web2 to Web3 journey for users looking for a more reliable way to store and send funds using stablecoins.

Simplifying Web3 transactions with easy onboarding and secure key management

With an easy onboarding process using Google credentials, MiniPay ensures that every user experiences prompt digital asset transfers and a smooth introduction to Web3 transactions. In contrast, many non-custodial wallets require users to be crypto savvy. The most common reason people lose their digital assets are the complexities around key management – forgetting the secret recovery phrase and passwords.

MiniPay’s goal is to make decentralised wallets intuitive so that users of all experience levels can transact. By automatically backing up the user’s keys in their own Google Drive, MiniPay enables users to recover their wallet if they lose their phone or simply reinstall the app. The wallet's foundation is built on speed, reliability, and financial inclusivity, making it a useful tool for users across Africa.

Opera brings simplicity to decentralised finance (DeFi) by integrating with the top partners in the market supporting local payment methods such as Airtime, MPesa, Bank Transfer, or Cards. MiniPay is a non-custodial wallet which means that it doesn’t touch any traditional banking rails and relies on local partners so users can add and withdraw stablecoins from their wallet into their local currency. MiniPay will also support Celo’s FiatConnect standard, which has a growing number of integrated partners and will further improve the Cash-In-Cash-Out experience globally.

Leveraging Celo's innovative technical features for financial inclusion in Africa

Celo’s additional core technical features, on top of which MiniPay is built, include:

• Sub-cent transaction fees, and the ability to pay for fees using stablecoins;

• Fast transaction speed with 5-second settlement;

• Seamless access to Celo’s rich ecosystem of 1,000+ dApps, from locally focused UBI (e.g., impactMarket) to global decentralised finance blue chips (e.g., Uniswap);

• Celo’s mobile-first compatibility with SocialConnect (a privacy-first naming service protocol that maps wallets to mobile phone numbers) and FiatConnect (an open on-/off-ramp API standard that facilitates Cash-In-Cash-Out integrations);

• Tapping into Celo’s vibrant African community, with a strong focus on regenerative finance (ReFi), grown since mainnet launched on Earth Day 2020.

Building for MiniPay

Following a vote by the Celo community in July 2023 to migrate from a Layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer-2, the Celo network will undergo technical upgrades to see increased security and scalability while maintaining low gas fees, bringing more real-world use cases to the Ethereum community. This technical migration, led by the Celo community and core contributors, including cLabs, opens the door for even more Ethereum-compatible dApps to be built for MiniPay, reimagining the future of on-chain finance for community advancement and inclusion in the new digital economy.

MiniPay will become available to Opera Mini users across Africa within the months following the announcement, first launching in Nigeria.