This proposal requests funding from the Celo Community Fund to support the next six months (January–June 2026) of core protocol development by the cLabs team. The scope of this funding period is directly aligned with the milestones outlined in the recently published cLabs H1 2026 Roadmap, which details the protocol upgrades, infrastructure work, and sequencing planned for the first half of the year.
This proposal focuses on resourcing the execution of that roadmap. It outlines the associated milestones, cost estimates, and cLabs’ continued commitment to transparency, milestone-based reporting, and accountable use of community funds.
Following a year of sustained execution in 2025, including the successful transition to an Ethereum Layer-2 and multiple production hardforks, Celo enters 2026 with a stable operational foundation and a clear, publicly shared roadmap.
As described in the cLabs H1 2026 Roadmap, the team's priorities for the first half of 2026 include:
This funding proposal is intended to support execution against those roadmap commitments and does not introduce additional scope beyond what has already been shared with the community.
| Milestone | Overview | Deliverables | Target Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jovian Hardfork | Upgrade Celo L2 to OP Stack Upgrade 17 | Jovian-compatible op-geth, op-node, and fault-proof stack; mainnet hardfork | Q1 2026 |
| Espresso Integration | Integrate pre-confirmations to improve confirmation latency | Pre-confirmation integration work spanning testnet and mainnet readiness | Q1--Q2 2026 |
| Fusaka Enablement | Post-Jovian Ethereum compatibility upgrade | Fusaka enabled on Celo L2, contingent on OP Stack prerequisites | Q2 2026 |
| Security and Verifiability Improvements | Reduce trust assumptions and broaden fault-challenging participation | Protocol improvements and clearer documentation of guarantees | Q1--Q2 2026 |
| Performance and Scalability | Investigate throughput improvements while preserving low fees | Evaluations and configuration changes informed by network usage | Q1--Q2 2026 |
| Valora Migration and Maintenance | Continued stewardship of Celo's primary consumer wallet | Ongoing product maintenance and migration to cLabs stewardship | Ongoing |
To deliver on these milestones, this proposal seeks funding for the following budget line items:
| Cost Category | Details | Total Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Fully Loaded Engineering Costs | Approximately 12 contributors across core protocol engineering, DevOps, security & IT, product and tooling | $1,121,914 |
| Infrastructure and Tooling | Cloud services, testnet hosting, monitoring, and analytics | $90,000 |
| Communications and Community Coordination | Public outreach, L2 developer events, community coordination | $30,000 |
| Total | $1,241,914 |
The total requested budget of $1,241,914 will be funded through a mix of OP and CELO, with $500,000 in OP and the remaining $741,914 in CELO. At today's prices, $741,914 corresponds to approximately 4,355,627 CELO.
This proposed budget has been reduced by almost half from the 2025 H2 budget, to reflect current market conditions. cLabs is committed to remain conservative and responsible in today's environment.
As with prior proposals, cLabs will continue to self-fund senior management, legal, finance, people operations, marketing, office costs, hardware, travel, and other non-protocol expenses.
Consistent with prior cLabs funding proposals, the CELO portion will be disbursed through a ReleaseCelo smart contract with a cliff and linear vesting thereafter. If milestone commitments are not met, the community retains the ability to revoke unvested funds through governance.
cLabs will provide regular progress updates on the Celo Forum and continue engaging governance participants and ecosystem stakeholders throughout the funding period to ensure alignment with community priorities and Ethereum's Layer-2 roadmap.
H1 2026 represents a critical execution phase for Celo's Layer-2 evolution. The milestones outlined in this proposal advance protocol alignment, improve user experience through faster finality, strengthen security and verifiability, and ensure long-term stewardship of essential ecosystem infrastructure.
This work builds on a track record of delivering major protocol upgrades in production and sets the stage for another cycle of disciplined, high-impact execution by the cLabs team.
Fill out the following template for each transaction in the proposal
0x9d65E69aC940dCB469fd7C46368C1e094250a400)0x471EcE3750Da237f93B8E339c536989b8978a438 (Celo),
address payable to = 0xD533Ca259b330c7A88f74E000a3FaEa2d63B7972,
uint256 value = 4355627000000000000000000)0xCc651797284339852a38F66C31fAFA8ffE9e8fBE, uint256 value = 4355627000000000000000000 (approx 4.35M CELO))Before approving/voting, fetch the on-chain proposal and verify that the destination address matches the address of the ReleaseGold contract, 0xCc651797284339852a38F66C31fAFA8ffE9e8fBE and that the amount is 4,355,627 CELO, equivalent to 4355627000000000000000000.
$ celocli governance:show --proposalID TBD -n https://forno.celo.org
Then verify that the same contract is a ReleaseGold contract with parameters that match the proposal:
$ celocli releasecelo:show --contract 0xCc651797284339852a38F66C31fAFA8ffE9e8fBE -n https://forno.celo.org
In particular check these parameters:
releaseOwner: 0xD533Ca259b330c7A88f74E000a3FaEa2d63B7972 # check this is GovernanceProxy address by copy-pasting into Explorer: allows Governance to revoke the grant
beneficiary: 0xa8ebF58351879eA9b8EE04c4d9A224e39AA07a06 # cLabs self-custodied account
releaseSchedule:
amountReleasedPerPeriod: 725936833333333333333333 (~7.259e+23) # 6 times this number is the total of the grant, divide by 1e18 for decimal
releasePeriod: 1 month, 10 hours # monthly vesting
numReleasePeriods: 6 # 6 month total vest
releaseCliff: Mon, Mar 2, 2026, 9:00 PM GMT+1
releaseStartTime: Thu, Jan 1, 2026, 1:00 AM GMT+1
This proposal does not deploy or upgrade contracts or change network parameters so represents minimal risk to the network.
This proposal does transfer funds from the Community Fund. The major risk is an incorrect destination address that would leave the funds in the wrong account, or an incorrect releaseOwner on the ReleaseGold account. So long as those are correct, if any other parameter is incorrect, the contract can be revoked, the funds returned, and the grant reissued.