Isha Varshney with Rosette Belesi, Product Marketing Director at Opera, at OpenFi discussing "Building, Scaling & Enhancing MiniPay to Onboard African Users to Web3." Photo by Benjamin Arthur, courtesy of IdOS.

During EthCC, I had a chance to catch up with Isha Varshney, Head of Ecosystem at the Celo Foundation, who has extensive experience in decentralized finance and global financial inclusion initiatives. Given the main criticism around EthCC that “there are more side events than dApps,” we focused our conversation on building for the real world and MiniPay, a Celo-based app that has seen significant success in Africa with over 3 million wallet activations across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.

Isha, how are you enjoying EthCC? Any key themes you’re noticing?

EthCC has been incredible. Some of the major themes revolve around Layer 2 solutions. Last Sunday, core contributors cLabs launched the Celo Layer 2testnet, Dango. It's exciting to see the momentum as Celo migrates to join the OP Stack, a modular blockchain architecture.

We also participated in several events with Superchain and the OP Stack team, bringing together incredible builders. It's thrilling to see so many talented teams and individuals joining this ecosystem.

What are the biggest challenges in bringing Web3 to the mainstream? Is there still a big gap?

Yes and no. We're still in the early stages of Web3 and crypto. Much of the technology is highly technical and not immediately relevant to the everyday person—like my mom or friends who might not understand concepts like intents. However, these building blocks are crucial for the technology's development and interoperability.

The work we're doing now is laying the foundation for the future. In about five years, we hope to abstract crypto away from everyday users, making it seamlessly integrated into their lives. We're at an exciting juncture where we're building the infrastructure that will soon bring Web3 to the mainstream.

Building for users’ current needs and behaviors is a crucial component of this—and that means building for mobile devices. With roughly ¾ of the world’s population owning smartphones, far more than the population that has access to a computer, and financial activity increasingly being conducted by mobile devices, it’s necessary that we build mobile-first. This is what excites me about so many projects in the Celo ecosystem that are developing solutions to everyday challenges that users can incorporate into their daily lives.

What are the key elements needed to build the next great decentralized application (dApp)?

We're not thinking enough about everyday usability in this space. Interacting with crypto can be complicated and intimidating. For example, using most crypto wallets involves signing transactions and dealing with private keys, public keys, and wallet addresses, which are not exactly user-friendly.

One solution to address this is SocialConnect, a primitive developed for Celo that allows users to leverage their phone numbers as their wallet addresses. This kind of simplicity is crucial. We need more technology like that to onboard the next billion users. For crypto and Web3 to go mainstream, it has to be easy and intuitive for users.

When you talk to people who aren't in Web3, they often find it speculative and scary. What we need next is to remove these frictions and make it easy to understand. We're working on it and making progress in this space.

The collaboration between Celo and Opera is fascinating. Opera, a browser with 100 million users across Africa, is pre-installed on every Android device. In Africa, Android devices are ubiquitous, and people primarily interact with technology through their phones. Opera initially gained popularity by providing some free data, which is costly in many African regions, enabling anyone to browse the internet for one or two hours daily, opening up access for many users.

Celo’s ecosystem has always focused on real-world applications in these markets, so partnering with Opera was a natural fit. With their extensive distribution network, we integrated a wallet into the existing mobile Android browser used by millions, making it simple and accessible.

We launched this wallet in September last year, rolling it out country by country. Starting in Nigeria, we now operate in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. We now have over 3 million users, onboarding a massive number of new users daily. The wallet is designed with a stablecoin-only interface and a user-friendly UI/UX, allowing users to sign in with their Google account, making it incredibly easy to use.

Why is the stablecoin aspect important? Are stablecoins the perfect gateway to Web3?

Absolutely. Stablecoins are vital because they offer a consistent value in contrast to the often volatile nature of other cryptocurrencies. In emerging economies, where local currencies can be deflationary, people are familiar with and trust the value of the US dollar. Stablecoins provide this reliability, making them an ideal entry point into Web3. They give users confidence that their money will hold its value, which is crucial in markets where per-wallet volumes aren't large and financial security is paramount.

We started with the Celo Dollar (cUSD) in the wallet and recently expanded to include USDC from Circle and Tether’s USDT. The wallet's Pockets feature displays USDC, USDT, and cUSD in a simple, clean interface. Users can easily swap between these stablecoins by dragging and swapping from asset to asset—one of the only 1:1 stablecoin swap features on the market. The ease of use enhances accessibility while also bringing the experience of transacting with multiple stables to users who might be unfamiliar.

What advice do you have for builders trying to create for the people?

My experience with the Opera team has been incredible. They execute like no other team. They have over 1,000 ambassadors on the ground across all these markets and are constantly engaging with their ambassador network. This network helps onboard and troubleshoot with users, ensuring a smooth experience. Opera takes feedback and builds on it really well.

For example, we started with only cUSD, and the feedback was that users were familiar with other stablecoins and wanted to be able to use them in MiniPay. So, we added those to the product, meeting users where they are. That's my message to builders: meet people where they are. If they're familiar with something, leverage that. It's already challenging enough, so let's not reinvent the wheel.

With Celo, from day one, we've built for real-world use cases. Every step of the way, we've focused on building for practical applications, like microcredit in emerging markets with EthicHub or Haraka. We're committed to meeting users where they are and will continue to do so with MiniPay and all other projects.

What’s one app you’d really like to see built next?

Hmm, that’s a good one! I would love to see an all-in-one app similar to WeChat in China, which covers everything from payments to utilities. MiniPay is moving towards that vision for Africa with the inclusion of a Discover Page for the growing roster of integrated dApps. Imagine a single platform where you can handle all your needs using stablecoins or a corporate-backed currency.

For instance, as frequent travelers, we constantly switch SIM cards. What if we could abstract that concept, not just for SIM cards but for all forms of payment? It would be fantastic to have a seamless payment experience, no matter where you are. If I’m in Brussels and from New York, I should be able to pay for everything with the same app. It would make managing finances and daily activities so much simpler and more convenient.