We have been running this infrastructure since December 2025 so this proposal covers the period until November 2026.
This proposal requests funding to compensate five independent infrastructure operators: @swiftstaking, @kamikazechaser, @thylacine, @clemens, @dee for running Celo Challengers and the supporting infrastructure required to do so reliably over a 7-month period.
Running a challenger requires operators to maintain the following infrastructure:
The Celo challenger documentation also notes that challenger operators should run as much of the stack locally as possible, that historical state roots may need to be checked up to roughly one week back, and that an archive node and dedicated EigenDA proxy are part of a robust setup.
The goal of this proposal is to strengthen Celo's fault-proof and dispute infrastructure by ensuring that multiple independent operators have resources to run challengers continuously, monitor network behavior, and remain ready to challenge invalid state proposals when necessary.
Celo's security model benefits from having multiple independent challenger operators actively running the infrastructure required to verify proposed state roots and react if an invalid proposal appears. The challenger compares the proposed dispute game L2 state root against the operator's own locally derived state, and when there is a mismatch, the challenger can publish a challenge on L1.
That means challenger operations impose real and ongoing infrastructure costs. Operators must maintain a properly configured Celo archive node in full-sync mode, ensure access to the required L1 data sources, and operate the challenger service continuously.
This compensation helps ensure sustained uptime, distributed responsibility and continuity of operations.
This proposal funds five independent operators to run Celo challenger infrastructure for a period of seven months.
Each funded operator will be expected to:
Challenger needs to compare proposed state roots against a synced L2 state. because historical state roots may need to be checked for approximately a week, the operator must run a local L2 archive node. The setup also calls for a dedicated EigenDA proxy.
Each operator will be independently responsible for their own infrastructure, monitoring, and maintenance.
Success for this initiative will be evaluated using the following metrics:
This proposal aims to formalize and support challenger operations carried out by five experienced contributors within the Celo ecosystem. Collectively, these operators have contributed to Celo across multiple areas over the last half decade and are well positioned to run this infrastructure reliably.
Challenger operations require continuous technical oversight, dependable uptime, and meaningful infrastructure resources. The funding requested here is intended to support the ongoing operation of security-relevant infrastructure that strengthens Celo's fault-proof and dispute mechanisms.
Duration: 12 months from the start of the program in December 2025.
For each month, operators are expected to:
We are requesting a total of $75,000 USD for 12 months of operations.
This funding is calculated as follows:
This budget is intended to compensate operators for the ongoing cost and time involved in maintaining the required infrastructure, including compute, storage, bandwidth, monitoring, maintenance, and operational attention. Payments will be distributed monthly.
The Budget will be managed in a Multi Sign designed to have three members, part of the proposal.
Multisign Address (Threshold 3/5):
0x68ce71d4CECA3003701ca6844D9a345925407455
Signers:
0x8e52a8822dFBb2eA6cEdb84032A8acce7Fc058380x0330F6bE6aCE2D975b4aC7Be109C46015C508BB10x37BAedAA536f7144E72915C683e6095177D33e780x9B121b10dAdF1D97526Bc575Ef724fF45Bc7b3a20xD9eaEeA9b4AFccA934008429a1bC063C19518b6AWe are requesting the equivalent of $75,000 USD in CELO at a rate of $0.06 per CELO, plus a 5% buffer to account for price fluctuations, totaling 1,312,500 CELO.
One transfer covering the full CELO amount will be sent to the multisig 0x68ce71d4CECA3003701ca6844D9a345925407455. The CELO will be swapped to USDm and monthly payments shall be made to each operator. Any remaining CELO after the swap will be returned to the Community Fund ASAP.
Each team member has been involved in the Celo ecosystem for over half a decade across a wide range of roles, including running validators and RPC nodes, serving on the former Score Management Committee, supporting the initial launch of the Celo Community Fund and Prezenti Grants, maintaining monitoring infrastructure, and building on Celo.
The five operators covered by this proposal are:
@swiftstaking,
@kamikazechaser,
@thylacine,
@clemens,
@dee
PS: We would greatly encourage you to look at these projects from one of the builders: Sarafu Wallet, Grassroots Economics
Useful reference for challenger setup:
We welcome the community's review and feedback on the scope of this proposal, payment mechanics and the importance of maintaining a decentralized set of challenger operators for Celo.
0x471EcE3750Da237f93B8E339c536989b8978a438)increaseAllowancespender = 0x68ce71d4CECA3003701ca6844D9a345925407455, value = 1312500000000000000000000 (1,312,500 CELO)See mainnet.json.
Key addresses:
0x471EcE3750Da237f93B8E339c536989b8978a4380x68ce71d4CECA3003701ca6844D9a345925407455 (Threshold 3/5)0xD533Ca259b330c7A88f74E000a3FaEa2d63B7972