The Celo Foundation announced on Wednesday 50 founding members of the Celo Alliance for Prosperity. “Celo is an open platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone,” its website describes. The project offers a way for developers to build mobile apps based on Celo’s Ethereum-based blockchain with a stablecoin.

“The effort is designed to deliver humanitarian aid, facilitate payments and enable microlending through a cryptocurrency called the Celo Dollar, which is scheduled to launch in April,” Bloomberg reported. Chuck Kimble, who heads the Alliance for Prosperity, said in a phone interview with the publication:

The value of the Celo Dollar will be pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by a reserve of other cryptocurrencies … It will be available in the U.S., but the alliance’s focus is on Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Citing that “Today less than .5% of global citizens benefit from the speed, transparency, utility, and low cost of using blockchain technology,” the foundation detailed, “The Alliance members have a plan to change that and are committed to leveraging the power of Celo’s innovative blockchain technology to create solutions that work across devices, carriers, and countries.”

More than 50 members of the Celo Alliance for Prosperity. Some members also support Facebook’s Libra project, such as cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz.
“Alliance members are pursuing a diverse set of use cases, including powering mobile and online work, enabling faster and affordable remittances, reducing the operational complexities of delivering humanitarian aid, facilitating payments, and enabling microlending,” the foundation’s announcement explains. “Their combined reach is over 400 million people.”

Competing With Facebook’s Libra
The project is dubbed by some as a rival to Facebook’s Libra project, which has been scrutinized by regulators worldwide since it was first announced. The Libra project is currently considering redesigning as several key members have left the project, including Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Mercado Pago, Ebay, and Vodafone.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: news.bitcoin.com