Celo DeFi Spend

Inspiration

On Celo, people can Earn, and Send CELO and other ecosystem tokens. However, there is an opportunity to make it easier to spend Celo, cUSD, and cEUR on products and services regardless of the country you are from and directly on CELO wallets like Valora app without cashing out to the bank.

This is why we built Celo Defi Spend.

The Earn program on Valora app helps increase adoption and also engagement for Celo and the ecosystem. And the existing integration for spending on Valora and other apps is a great start for enabling utility.

However, more than just enabling utility for Celo, the Defi Spend unleashes utility. Read on to see how!

What it does

This project will unleash a new utility for Celo, cUSD, and cEUR on the Celo Wallet app and provides an easy way and for wallets like Valora to offer CELO to 300+ Gift Cards, Mobile Money in 13 countries, Airtime in 15 countries, and many upcoming products and services that is sure to delight users, keep them engaged in the app and unlock utility even in mobile offline contexts.

A user on the app will browse a list of products and services and buy it for themselves or send it to one or a thousand users with the click of a button right without leaving the Celo Wallet app.

For individuals looking to access Gift cards and other local assets like mobile money, they can directly access it in Celo Wallet app without paying bank fees or going to a bank account. Spend Celo

How we built it

For the Hackathon, I extended the Celo Web Wallet to include an additional feature in the same place as the other bottoms.

Then, I was able to generate a request to buy a product or service using the Chimoney API and have the user pay for the transaction.

The product service is then delivered to the user.

Next, I started working on enabling Valora users to directly spend on products and services as I noticed an opportunity to provide a better exchange rate when buying for African and Asian Airtime and to also support Mobile Money which is huge in Africa and requires to internet to work.

So Imagine:

CELO to Mobile Money to anyone even without Internet connection in the remotest part of the world
CELO to Airtime to support virtual events

SDKs used

@celo/contractkit
web3
crypto
forno.celo.org/ws
valoraapp deeplinks

How it works

User flow

Celo Web Wallet

Open Celo Web Wallet at https://celo-defi.chimoney.io
Click on More and select the Spend option
An embedded purchase experience is presented to the user in a modal (aligning with the existing Celo Web Wallet design)
Browse offered products and services
Select a product/Service
Enter the amount to spend on the product or service
Preview and transaction
Confirm the transaction and sign with Celo Web Wallet
After payment is confirmed, receive the product instantly to the spending method specified

Pay with Valora (WIP)

On mobile go to http://chispend.com/?cSContext=valora&xAppStyle=light (will not work on Desktop)
Browse offered products and services
Select a product/Service
Enter the amount to spend on the product or service
Preview and transaction
Click pay and you will be redirected to Valora via a deeplink
Confirm payment* (WIP)
Deliver product/service* (WIP)

_* to deliver the product and complete purchase, we need to be able to redirect to http://chispend.com/process/celo/confirm?txid=CELO_TRANSACTION_ID

Supported products and services

Gift Cards: Global
Airtime: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia
Mobile Money: Kenya, Ghana and Uganda

Integration for your Web3 Celo project

In-platform Embed

Deposit Celo to get access to a cloud of Gift Cards, Mobile Money, Airtime, and more without dealing with all the partners individually
Use the ChiSpend embed as done in this Hackathon project, https://celo-defi.chimoney.io
Enable users to pay in your wallet
Convert payment to user balance you maintain on Chimoney
Deliver the product/service the user paid for

API Integration

Deposit Celo to get access to a cloud of Gift Cards, Mobile Money, Airtime, and more without dealing with all the partners individually
Do a full API integration to enable users spend their CELO on your wallet or DApp without leaving the App

More usecase

Spend earnings DeFi on the DeFi app

The circle for money movement with DeFi ecosystem is still not a closed loop. People are able to earn from gaming, NFTs, staking, farming and all the other cool stuff. But they cannot directly use that earning in real life without first going through hoops with conversion to other currencies or even withdrawing to a bank, thus defeating the purpose of making DeFi mobile.

We believe that people should be able to directly spend their earnings in context: wallet, DeFi apps, DApps, etc.

Celo Defi Spend enables this in the Celo Web wallet and for people that earn from the Celo The Supercharge Rewards Program

Sell an NFT in any Wallet

Just like we offer Gift Cards, Airtime, Mobile money and other products and services, we could also offer an NFT marketplace embedded inside any wallet

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We closed the loop and enabled people to Spend celo on locally-relevant products and services
We did real test to get people's feedback and excitement
You can try it right now

What's next for Celo Defi Spend

Work with other wallet providers to integrate via a simple embed or a deeper API integration to enable users to spend CELO on any Celo wallet
List NFTs and other digital goods and enable people to pay for the NFT directly with their wallet balance
Support Deeplinks so that other wallets like Valora can enable users to buy any supported product and redirect to a confirmation page