In recent report, Opera, the Norweigan browser company, is moving to replace US dollar payments with crypto payments, in an agreement restructuring with the Celo ecosystem.
Opera, a Nasdaq-listed web browser company, is proposing to change how it is compensated by the Celo ecosystem, opting to receive native tokens instead of cash as it deepens its involvement with the network.
The company said Thursday it has proposed restructuring its commercial agreement, moving from US dollar-denominated quarterly payments to an allocation of 160 million CELO tokens, subject to approval by Celo’s onchain governance community.
If approved, the shift would more directly align Opera’s financial incentives with the network's performance and make it one of the largest institutional holders of CELO. — Cointelegraph report
For most people that have been paying attention, it's no surprise that traditional companies are increasing crypto ties at this time.
For companies like Opera, it was inevitable. Much of crypto's world has been accessed through browsers.
Not because mobile application could not be built, clearly a ton exists, but because the inherent design of crypto and blockchain requires an environment with much flexibility, and browsers are simply that.
Crypto innovations being deployed as mostly web apps means that developers don't have to deal with tech giants like Alphabet and Apple, and that users can conveniently plug-in and play from whatever device they are running on.
It's the perfect environment for decentralized applications.
The game of stakes
Now we are moving into a time where companies will compete for stakes. For the crypto-natives, the importance of ownership isn't a foreign concept.
The whole idea behind the industry is that all of it is owned by everyone.
This means that each time some new people want to come in, they'd have to acquire a stake.
Not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to.
The partnership has increasingly centered on Opera’s MiniPay wallet, a self-custodial app built on Celo, which the company says has grown to 14 million users and focuses on stablecoin payments in emerging markets.
Minipay is a payment service that I've come across a couple of times, I had no idea it was owned by Opera.
As the report highlights, this service runs on Celo. Celo processes roughly $6.2 billion in stablecoins payments monthly.
Opera's move to receive income payments in the Celo token, which is an asset of merely $48 million marketcap is about having influence in an ecosystem holding up its business.
It's not necessarily about having some "faith" or believe in the future of Celo, but about ensuring that they have a voice moving forward.
The good news, for the crypto industry is that things are ironically shaping up as the intended design. Every crypto project is going to experience this in some form.
Every business that moves to integrate with any crypto/blockchain project will eventually become a stakeholder, ensuring that in the long-term, these economies will be directly influenced by a vastly distributed and decentralized community.
Everything from the growing number of traditional companies buying up Bitcoin and Ether and now Opera wanting Celo tokens for compensations, all proves a growing hunger for ownership role by traditional companies.
