Building for the Global Majority on Celo - ETHGlobal Bangkok 2024

okay um hi everyone I am Sophia also excuse the noise I feel like it's like I feel like I'm at a concert this is really funny um but essentially I'll be talking about cell particularly how to build on cell and why uh this is a great opport to build apps for everyday problems for everyday users um and then a little intro about me I am currently the devell engineer lead at cell uh and if you have any questions feel free to find me at the cell Booth afterwards or add me on Twitter um before I go into everything wanted to do a little brief of what is cell has anyone here heard of cello before like a quick show of hands awesome okay I think that's most of you but just as a little recap um cell is an emerging ethereum layer 2 and mobile first blockchain Network that is built for the real world and designed for fast lowcost payments worldwide um so what exactly do we mean when we say cell is built for the real world well is anyone familiar with this campaign the crypto is useless campaign um has anyone heard when you maybe you're telling your parents or friends like that you work in crypto and they were respond well crypto is useless is that like a saying that you've heard um well for many many don't understand the real world applications that crypto technology can have and it's important that we continue to build for users that need crypto so to this argument crypto is useless we'd argue that crypto is not useless if you need it um wait how do I I don't know how to play video sorry one second I'm trying to get my video um to show okay wait sorry I'm not sure okay let me just do Google I think it's on the other screen right yeah that's fine okay sorry about that um the video wasn't working on this but essentially for cello uh our apps are particularly designed centered around solving a real world problem so as we see we have mini pay and it's arguing that crypto is not useless um whether you've like lived with hyperinflation or you've run a small business um or whether you need certain at microloans uh so these are some of the applications within the cell ecosystem and we're really targeted on our end users so cello is specifically designed uh to enable real world use cases on ethereum so we were're a layer one evm compatible blockchain and we're actually in the process right now of transitioning to an ethereum layer 2 and we're optimized for mobile first so we have certain features such as uh mapping phone numbers to wallet addresses or paying for gas fees with local stable coins instead of needing a native currency so you can check out all the other sell specific features um that enable um app developers to build things that and real world use cases on top of etherium so a few of the bounties that you can expect and apply for that I want to talk about more in depthly today during this Workshop is uh building an app built for mobile and so we are offering 6,000 uh cusd for this app and I'll go into a little bit about what you can expect from this bounty and then the second bounty that we have is the best open- source tool built on our cell L2 test net so like I mentioned before cell recently uh just deployed um our L2 test net on Alpha hores so you can be one of the first Builders to actually begin deploying and using this tool so why mobile first well three out of four people in the world um own mobile phones and right now dap development is optimized for desktop so if we're only building applications uh that can where users can interact with the blockchain Via a computer we're really missing out on opportunities to be building for the global majority and building for users who can access the blockchain Via their mobile phones it's really important that us all as Builders as ethereum Builders us all who are passionate about bringing real world use cases of ethereum uh globally to billions of users around the world it's important that we ensure that we're providing value to Everyday users where they already are and one of the areas where users already are is on Mini pay uh so is anyone here familiar with the Opera browser if you can see that like little circle it's one of the most popular browsers in Africa they actually offer a little bit of free data each month so it's one of the most popular browsers in the continent um and a little video about mini okay it's a stable coin wallet built on the cell blockchain that's natively integrated into the Opera browser so if you open up the browser on Opera you'll see a little uh mini pay button where you can interact with the blockchain use stable coins send dollars uh two phone numbers and you can like register an account with a very like web2 like experience um and it also comes with a built-in dap Discovery page so not only is it a stable coin wallet it's also a distribution Channel to daps and Regional specific daps right now minay since launching has over 4 million uh active users and holders of this wallet so when you're building apps for minay uh you are really building for all of these users as well um a few of the features that make this stable coin wallet unique is that you can map phone numbers to wallet addresses so you can pay uh pay pay pH numbers pay people in your contact list and the end user doesn't really realize they're using crypto um it's also super fast and low cost so less than point a tenth of a cent um and one second block finality and we have a Dap Discovery page with regional specific apps so since you're signing up with your phone number if you open up the DAP Discovery page in Kenya maybe you have an Mesa offramp but that will look different from if you open up the DAP Discovery page in Brazil so this allows app Builders to build hypers specific apps for their countries and their regions um and it's also designed for non- Crypton native users so right now if you're trying to build an app for a non- Crypton native user how will they find out about your application that's very difficult with mini pay they already are active on this wallet and they can easily interact with your app uh straight from the Opera Mini browser so uh a little bit of why I encourage all of you all here and what the opportunities are for building on Mini pay is this is truly one of the best distribution channels I would argue in all of web 3 you can tap into Opera's large user base which has about a 100 million users uh there's integrated dap Discovery so users uh can interact with your app straight from the mini pay wallet they don't have to relog in uh like of a metamask wallet pay for gas fees um and you get opportunity to build and for everyday users um particularly users in Africa but with the mini pay Standalone this is really extending to a bunch of other regions as well so how to build on Mini pay how can you get started well we at C Devo built out a cell composer which is essentially a quick start to easily create daps optimized for mini pay and I'll show you a little bit of how that works um essentially there's a CLI that you can use in your terminal to install the mini template there's some pre-written smart contracts that are already there and you can also access readymade frontends to interact with the contracts and it's also all built on a responsive web app that's optimized for mini pay wallet testing so a little bit of how this will work and all of this if you want to follow along is in docs. c.org you can get exact step by steps or you can check out the workshop videos where I have an exact template uh more in- depth but essentially this is what the uh the app will look like after you install the template it's like a hard hat and a react um react framework all there and then you'll have a link uh that you can use and actually paste that link right into the mini pay site tester so uh for anyone who has an Android unfortunately it's not active on iOS or apple quite yet you can download the test flight and iOS will be coming soon but right now you have to test out the app within minay if you're applying for the Bounty no and you don't have an Android it's not a strict requirement this is just if you want to check it out um so you can click on the mini pay and open up the mini pay wallet I'll show you a bit of what this will look like this is how the mini wallet looks like as you can see there's a big dap Discovery feed right here um and then you can open up the site tester where you can paste in load in uh website so this is why we want people to build responsive web apps and once you have that link you can paste it into uh the load it inside the site tester and test out different things with this app um so here I'm doing some examples of how you can begin testing out some of the key features that it comes with right away uh if you are building on Mini pay and you want a bit of inspiration for apps ideas and use cases we wrote out a few uh such as payments on and off ramps donations X to earn gift cards coupons Merchants micro work reward-based games these are just a few to get you started obviously these are not strict requirements but I did want to use this Workshop in this session to offer a few useful tips for you all so if you are building for mini pay it's really important that you begin with the first thing is focused on your end user identify the specific person that you're building for identify a real problem that they're facing and design around there so even think small you don't need to build for every single person think about maybe your spec where you're from a regional specific use case to you and that's the type of products that do really really well on Mini the other thing is keep it simple remember that a lot of the users who are interacting with apps on Mini have never interacted with crypto before and they might not even realize that minay is a stable coin crypto wallet they just see oh it's usdt it's it's stable coins or it's uh a currency back to the US dollar they don't really get that it's crypto and they might not get it's crypto so keep it super super simple and then the last thing is make it useful so a reminder to address a local practical challenge um because again those are the types of apps that people use the second Bounty that we have available is the best open-source tool built on Cell 2 which is our L2 test net or alpah hores L2 is the technical name for L2 test net and we are giving out $4,000 in prizes so here's a little graph we are transitioning from an evm compatible layer one to uh ethereum Layer Two on the op stack and part of the optimism super chain so we're doing this one for better alignment with ethereum ecosystem and more interop ability so now instead of being a siloed L1 maybe on a siloed Island we can actually interact and have more inability with super chain l2s and other l2s in general um and there's opportunity for Native bridging so this really opens up the landscape uh and this is a new chapter for cell that has never really existed before and again you can all be the first to experiment on what this means we're looking for tools and infrastructure that enhance the functionality of the cell L2 ecosystem system um some use cases and ideas again this is just to get you started is developer tooling cell composer improvements like I showed before uh wallet Integrations maybe you can integrate uh fee abstraction or social Connect into different types of wallets super chain interr probability uh if you are building on another Super chain and oracles try to figure out like maybe like forecaster frames how that how that can also be interoperable with cello and finally some social connection use cases and I'll dive into what social connect is um so earlier when I was talking about mini pay you can map phone numbers to wallet addresses that is powered by a protocol on Cell called social connect and this Maps offchain personal identifiers like a phone number a email maybe a Twitter username to an actual wallet address so think of like ens but actual identifiers we already have what's cool is because every single person who uses mini or velora is actually creating uh a social connect identifier this means that social connect is actually one of the largest onchain identity protocols uh within the um crypto ecosystem and we already have over 3.5 million registered identifiers it also really improves payment ux so instead of having to send transactions to a wallet address you can just send it to someone in your contact list and what this means now is you will have a social graph um of one of the best social graphs because you have your entire contact list as a social graph and this really improves like functionality for apps and what this can enable for maybe social apps as well some useful tips to keep in mind as you're trying to build on alphora L2 is that this L2 is new and we really need your feedback to improve it this is an ongoing process cell is an ecosystem of uh of contributors and Builders and the way that cell improves is with Builder feedback so if you're trying to build on our Alpha horl 2 that just launched last month and there's anything missing make sure to check out our docs and you can find our GitHub discussion page add in your feedback add in your support get involved in the ecosystem maybe we'll make that into bounties and offer bounties for people who are supporting and improving our test net the second thing is social connect is still an early development from a builder standpoint so if you're new to building on on social connect uh we really really need your feedback for improvements for improving the developer experience and you can be one of the first Builders to explore building on social connect so this is another really great opportunity and you can really lead the way um for there so just to recap cell is on a mission to uh be is a mission first planet positive blockchain ecosystem leading a thriving digital economy we are trying to uh create a blockchain that's built with purpose and built for all and if you want to get started building on Cell check out this QR code it has all of our cheat sheets I also have some physical hard cheat sheets with me that I can hand to all of you guys at the end and come by the cello Booth it's on the opposite side of the venue uh where we will have those cheat sheets you can check them out they'll have links to our faucet um our explorers tips for quick starts everything you saw on the slides more information about our bounties uh app ideas and everything where to get support everything is on the cheat these cheat sheets so go check them out um and that's all do we have time for quick question quick question if anyone have a question about connecting to the phone number and the um you know like I have a phone number that I've had for 20 years and then now it's um become a bit of an identity uh so uh I'm thinking but it's not Global it's connected to the US so I I'm thinking are you seeing like connecting like a Google Voice or something that's uh a digital one that would be valid in every country then to connect to the new application you're putting together yeah if I'm understanding your question correctly it's if you have a phone number are we seeing people using like a separate phone number to use these or they're using their existing phone number their existing phone number okay so most people will be using like their main phone number like the one you've had for 20 years but that's not actually stored on the blockchain so social connect uses a protocol called Otis which actually um hi is like a identi hides the actual phone number and wallet address it just Maps it so the it's not actually you can't see your phone number from just the blockchain you'll have to call a lookup and registry function to pull in the information so most people are using their actual like phone numbers but it's not you're not posting your phone number like for everyone to see it's you need this function to like un like unwrap it and actually process it I see so not like WhatsApp yeah yeah exactly cool well if you have any more questions come find me at my booth uh at the cell booth and you can talk to uh uh anyone who's wearing a cryp yeah not not everyone who's wearing a crypto us this sht because there's lots of us but come find anyone on the cell team thank you