Opera is looking to turn its partnership with Celo into something far more permanent—and far more significant.
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The Nasdaq-listed browser company has proposed swapping its existing cash-based agreement for a 160 million CELO token allocation, a move that would position Opera as one of the network’s largest stakeholders if approved by the community.
From Partner to Power Player
The proposal, submitted to Celo’s governance forum, would replace quarterly dollar payments with a three-year token grant sourced from the network’s treasury.
The scale is hard to ignore:
160 million CELO equals roughly 27% of circulating supply
It represents 16% of the total 1 billion token supply
To balance influence, voting power tied to these tokens would be capped at 10% of total staked CELO, except in emergency scenarios.
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MiniPay Is Driving the Shift
At the center of this move is MiniPay, Opera’s self-custodial crypto wallet built on Celo’s low-cost payment rails.
Since launching in 2023, MiniPay has quietly become the network’s breakout application:
14+ million registrations
420+ million transactions
Active across 66 countries
The wallet focuses on real-world usability—letting users send stablecoins using phone numbers instead of wallet addresses and supporting local payment methods in markets like Argentina and Brazil.
That traction is exactly why Opera is doubling down.
As EVP Jorgen Arnesen put it, MiniPay’s scale gives Opera a direct stake in the ecosystem’s success, making a long-term token position a natural next step.
Aligning Incentives at Scale
The proposed shift signals a deeper alignment between product usage and network ownership. Instead of being paid to build on Celo, Opera would now own a meaningful हिस्सा of the ecosystem it’s helping grow.
It also reflects a broader trend: major Web2 platforms moving beyond integrations and toward onchain ownership and governance participation.
Adding to that momentum, Opera says over 50 million browser users who recently earned rewards will soon be able to redeem them as USDT directly داخل MiniPay—further tying its global user base into the Celo economy.
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A Defining Vote Ahead
If approved, the deal would transform Opera from a strategic partner into a core stakeholder in the Celo network—one with long-term incentives tied directly to adoption and usage.
It’s a high-stakes shift, both in scale and signal: one of the first major examples of a mainstream tech company moving from building on a blockchain… to owning a meaningful piece of it.
