I bet Laslo Hanyecz wishes he paid for his two large pizzas from Papa John’s with stablecoins instead of Bitcoin back in 2010. “I’ll pay 10,000 Bitcoins for a couple of pizzas”, he posted on a Bitcointalk chat forum. A 19-year old California student filled the order making the transaction the first physical purchase made with cryptocurrency in history. 

“Bitcoin Pizza Day” celebrates this famous transaction which cost the equivalent of over $343 million in today’s valuation! Heart wrenching. How can you make sure your pizza doesn’t give you heartburn? Transact with a stablecoin. 

All jokes aside, stablecoins are a predictable alternative to the volatility of BTC$ and ETH$ and are pegged to an outside asset like fiat (dollars or euros, for example) or gold. Think of them as global, encrypted, digital currency minted on blockchain for everyday use. They cannot be forged on your behalf. Send over the Web, lend to earn interest, or swap for other cryptocurrencies when you want. Like various fiat currency you might hold in your real leather wallet, keep different cryptocurrencies in your Opera wallet depending on how you are transacting. But there’s more upside to stablecoins than just regularly priced pizza. 

Today, we celebrate the integration of the first stablecoins in Opera browser’s built-in crypto wallet. Welcome cUSD and cEUR! Pegged to fiat, these coins are part of the Celo decentralized platform that aims to empower anyone with a smartphone anywhere in the world to have access to financial services, send money through mobile phones, and pay merchants. 

Mobile + Access to Markets + Currency = Alliance for Prosperity

Mobile phones and messaging have reached all areas of the globe but the same cannot be said about banking services. Mobile payments are increasingly the preferred method of transacting due to lower fees, faster settlement, and ease of use. Since access to markets and financial products varies greatly between countries, the use of stablecoins in mobile payments is gaining traction as an alternative form of payment. The use of digital money via mobile phones to access markets, provides an opportunity for consumers to generate more income and become financially empowered. This is the heart of the Opera and Celo partnership and the Alliance for Prosperity.

Celo’s battle cry is passionately demonstrated in its mission-aligned network of 140+ organizations fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology. Opera is proud to be a member of the Alliance which aims to share digital money in faster, more efficient and transparent ways through collaborations across the technology stack. Celo assets exist on an independent blockchain, and can only be accessed through wallets that connect to the Celo platform, like the Opera crypto wallet. Opera’s focus on key growth markets; US, EU, Southeast Asia, and LATAM will enable these communities that are heavily reliant on mobile use, to interact with Celo stablecoin assets, cUSD & cEUR effortlessly within the Opera browser. Millions of people will now have access to new savings, P2P payments, cash in/cash out services, through Opera’s crypto wallet embedded in the Web3 browser. You can purchase and interact with these assets just like other supported assets in the Opera wallet, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Activate the Opera crypto wallet in the Opera browser and buy Celo.

celocryptocryptocurrencystablecoin

---