Celo Cements Its Stablecoin Allegiance: Transaction Fees Now Can Be Paid With Stablecoins

Celo, a low-fee, usability-focused blockchain network, has approved a proposal to allow transaction fees to be paid with stablecoins. Network users can now transact only by holding USDC in their wallets, abstracting the complexity of holding other tokens. This also benefits newcomers, making it easier for them to make transactions.

Celo Aims for Usability in Stablecoin Gas Push

Celo, a low-fee, transaction-focused blockchain, is advancing moves to become the home for cryptocurrency stablecoins. After welcoming USDT and USDC as native stablecoins in its platform, seeking to onboard value-aware users, the platform has approved using USDC for paying sub-cent transaction fees.
To achieve this milestone, the Celo community passed a governance proposal that allowed using USDC as a gas token. This is possible due to the options in Celo’s protocol, which presents the possibility for any token to become a gas-paying currency after clearing up some conditions.
Clabs, the protocol development organization for Celo, had remarked on the relevance of allowing stablecoins to become gas tokens in Celo before. It stressed that gas payments with these tokens “enable great UX on the protocol level – particularly relevant for real-world applications like (micro) payments.”
At the same time, while enabling these interactions can add “additional complexity on the protocol level”, Clabs acknowledges that this is abstracted on users that benefit from these advancements.

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, also praised this move. He stated:

A paradigm for mass scale USDC and stablecoin adoption. Well done Celo community!

USDT, the largest stablecoin by market cap in the crypto market, is also undergoing the process of becoming a gas token on Celo. A proposal, drafted on March 18, remarks on the benefits of making USDT a gas token on the Celo blockchain. It states that if passed, it would “greatly enhance the usability of USDT on Celo by allowing users to receive USDT in their wallet and engage in transactions without holding additional tokens.”
What do you think about Celo’s initiative of using stablecoins to pay for transaction fees? Tell us in the comments section below.