Opera & Celo Expand Partnership for Global Stablecoin Payments

The extended partnership between Opera and the Celo Foundation centers on making stablecoin payments “ubiquitous around the world,” as stated by Jørgen Arnesen, EVP Mobile at Opera. The core vehicle for this mission is MiniPay, a non-custodial stablecoin wallet built on the Celo blockchain, which has demonstrated remarkable traction since its September 2023 launch. According to the announcement, MiniPay has grown to 11 million activated wallets and has processed over 300 million transactions. This activity has helped propel Celo to the top of Ethereum layer-2 networks by daily active users, boasting 700,000 DAUs and over 3 million weekly USDT users.

The strategic roadmap includes several key initiatives designed to reduce friction and expand utility. These are stablecoin-backed payment cards, expanded real-world asset offerings, and a joint Mini App Roadshow scheduled across Asia and South America in early 2026. A critical recent integration has been with Mercado Pago, the digital payments arm of Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre, and Brazil’s central bank-operated PIX instant payment system. This pilot enables stablecoin-to-real-time payments in Argentina and Brazil, with plans to “expand to all users globally to further reduce off-ramping friction.”

The partnership’s focus on Latin America is data-driven, targeting a region where crypto, and specifically stablecoins, have achieved mainstream financial utility. A Chainalysis report cited in the announcement reveals that Latin America recorded nearly $1.5 trillion in crypto transaction volume between July 2022 and June 2024. Brazil leads the region, having received $318.8 billion in crypto value—a staggering 109.9% period-over-period growth.

Perhaps more telling is the composition of these flows. Over 90% of Brazilian crypto transactions are now stablecoin-related, with stablecoin purchases constituting more than half of all exchange activity in Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. This dominance underscores the region’s use of stablecoins like USDT as a hedge against inflation, a medium for remittances, and a tool for everyday commerce. The integration with PIX and Mercado Pago directly taps into this established behavior, bridging decentralized digital assets with entrenched national payment rails.

The ambition to bring financial inclusion to a billion people by 2030 arrives as the stablecoin market itself faces both growth and uncertainty. According to CoinGecko data, the total stablecoin market capitalization currently exceeds $310 billion. However, users on the prediction market Myriad (owned by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan) overwhelmingly expect that total capitalization will not surpass $360 billion before next February, suggesting tempered near-term expectations for explosive market-wide growth.

This context makes the operational growth of MiniPay and its focus on specific, high-adoption corridors all the more significant. Rather than relying solely on broad market expansion, the partnership is executing a ground-game strategy. The planned 2026 Mini App Roadshow across Asia and South America will target regions with strong developer activity and expanding crypto adoption, aiming to build the local ecosystem and applications that drive real-world use. By combining a high-utility wallet, strategic local integrations, and community-focused expansion, Opera and the Celo Foundation are betting on targeted adoption to achieve their lofty inclusion goals.