Built into Opera Mini, the MiniPay self-custodial stablecoin wallet sends and receives transactions in less than 5 seconds, Celo claims.
Opera has developed a new dollar stablecoin wallet on the Celo network for its Android browser Opera Mini to bring more users into the web3 space.
In a blog post on Sept. 13, Celo said the so-called MiniPay wallet weighs 2 megabytes and will be initially available only in Nigeria, expanding to Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa in the coming months.
Celo says the companies picked Africa for the launch due to its poor infrastructure and high unemployment rates, which presents a “unique opportunity to offer a more stable way to store and send money using digital assets.”
“Users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa have indicated that even when satisfied with their current payment solutions, there are still lingering concerns about high fees, unreliable service uptimes, a lack of transparency around transaction progress, and mobile data access.”
Jorgen Arnesen, Opera EVP Mobile
The wallet enables users to pay gas fees using ERC20 tokens (like stablecoins) with support for SocialConnect, a naming service protocol that maps wallets to mobile phone numbers. It is unclear if Opera plans to roll out the same product for its browser on iOS devices.
Amid the news, Celo’s token CEL gained over 3%, reaching $0.42, according to data from TradingView.
Opera has been a pro-crypto player since 2018. Back then, the Norwegian software developer announced the launch of its web3-ready browser for Android with support for cryptocurrencies.
A year later, Opera Browser integrated TRON (TRX). In November 2022, the Oslo-headquartered company revealed DegenKnows, an analytics tool for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that includes on- and off-chain data to verify the authenticity of digital collectibles.