Insomniac’s Quick Guide to Celer Network

Overview

Launched in the depths of the 2018 bear market, Celer Network initially positioned itself as a layer-2 scaling solution but has since moved to provide services within the cross-chain space with the release of its cBridge product on 22 July 2021 and the subsequent v2.0 in October of the same year.

There has been consistent development on cBridge and supporting protocols to extend its usability and robustness. With new products being released consistently, its safe to assume that the team remains actively building.

Fun Fact: The word Celer is derived from the Latin word celeritas which means speed.

How Does It Work?

Core to Celer’s technology stack is its State Guardian Network which is a group of validators that are responsible for maintaining the off-chain state and ensuring the integrity of the network. It’s essentially Celer’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, basically its what validates and approves transactions going through the network.

The validators are operated by different organizations to ensure that the state and security of the network is maintained and its difficult for validators to collude and fraudulently approve transactions. Some of the existing validators include Binance, IOSG, HashQuark, InfStones and Ankr.

A Variety of Available Services

1. Celer cBridge
cBridge is Celer’s product providing cross-chain bridging services targeted at users that want to move their available tokens between the various connected blockchains. Currently cBridge connects 40 blockchains and supports the bridging of 147 tokens.

Incorporated into cBridge is 2 asset models, one being the usual pool-based model that we’re most familiar with and the other being what’s called the xAsset model which is similar to a mint-and-burn model but in the application within cBridge it allows tokens to be sent omni-directionally. In simple language, tokens utilizing xAsset model would no longer be required to be bridged back to the source chain in order to unlock liquidity before being bridged to a different blockchain.

A recent interesting development was the selection of cBridge as one of the bridging providers integrated into the Metamask Bridges section.

URL: https://cbridge.celer.network/

2. Layer2.finance
Layer2.finance was touted as a key service pushed by the Celer team in 2021. But with the success of cBridge, it would seem that for the moment the development of this service has slowed and it has been given less focus.

Layer2.finance is in simple terms a rollup that integrates DeFi protocols across different blockchains and makes accessing these different protocols cost cheaper as the gas fees are batched together before being sent to the base chain (Ethereum or other Layer 1’s).

A zero-knowledge version of layer2.finance was launched but has since been wound down. It’s not immediately clear what the plans are for this product and it may take some time before anything tangible materializes.

URL: https://layer2.finance/

5. Celer Inter-chain Messaging
Celer Inter-chain Message (Celer IM) is a protocol that allows for communication and transfer of assets across different blockchain networks. It enables cross-chain interoperability by providing a way for different blockchains to communicate with each other.

This enables a wide range of use cases including decentralized exchanges, cross-chain dApps, and more. Celer IM is designed to be highly interoperable and can be integrated with any blockchain network, allowing developers to easily integrate with their own existing platforms.

According to the launch announcement on Celer’s blog, Celer IM at launch is being utilized by projects such as ChainHop, SynFutures, Mystiko, Swing, FutureSwap, Ooki, Rubic, Solace and Aperture. This list of projects building on Celer IM may however be out of date as it was shared on April 2022.

URL: https://im-docs.celer.network/developer/celer-im-overview

3. Peti Protocol
This product is Celer’s offering for an omnichain liquidity protocol. Peti works with Market Makers (MMs) in order to complete transactions to move funds from one chain to another.

It however does not work with funds bridged. How it works is that an MM would receive the funds on the source chain from the user and once the funds are confirmed as received the MM on the destination would release the tokens to the user on the destination chain.

This service is targeted more at institutional skewed protocols and others which handle more large scale cross-chain transfers. By using Peti, the cross-chain transfers made through the protocol benefit from zero slippage, MEV protection and low fees (this is subjective as it can seem more expensive for smaller transfers).

URL: https://docs.peti.trade/overview/introduction

4. State Guardian Network
The State Guardian Network (SGN) is a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and a critical component of Celer’s services. The SGN allows $CELR token holders to participate in and benefit from the network’s growth by earning rewards. Although technically the SGN does not qualify as an actual product, it is included here since it provides users with an opportunity to be rewarded for their involvement. Through the use of this consensus mechanism, Celer can ensure that its services are secure and reliable while also providing incentives for token holders to remain active in the network.

Staking with one of the 21 validators available on Celer Network will not only earn token holders $CELR token incentives but also rewards in other tokens that are paid as fees for transactions utilizing cBridge, Celer IM or Peti.

URL: https://sgn.celer.network/

Other Tools

Explorer
URL: https://celerscan.com/

Analytics
URL: https://cbridge-analytics.celer.network/

Achievements

Celer has to date processed over 1,243,632 transactions which amount to over $12.4 billion in total transaction value. This represents an average of just over $10,000 per transaction.

cBridge was also selected as one of the four bridges initially integrated for the launch of Metamask Bridges section within their Portfolio dApp. This is a significant milestone as Metamask is one of the largest and most widely used wallet providers in the blockchain space.

Community Participation

Participation of the general community in Celer is minimal at best. There are the occasional improvement proposals that are put to vote every now and then but that represents the bulk of the community’s participation.

Celer Scan was alot communicated as developed by the community, however it is unclear who from the community developed it and what initiated the development.

Token Information

The $CELR token is an ERC20 based token with a maximum supply of 10 billion. Celer’s SGN represents the largest wallet currently holding in excess of 2,598,137,785 which represents about 26% of the total supply.

The second largest wallet at the moment is the Rewards wallet, holding a total of 1,876,575,893 $CELR tokens or about 18.76%. The Rewards wallet will continue to drop down the ranks of largest holders as the tokens held are distributed for staking rewards.

Contract address: 0x4F9254C83EB525f9FCf346490bbb3ed28a81C667

For up-to-date information, please refer to Etherscan.

Token Utility

The $CELR token can be used for staking in Celer’s SGN. For staking their tokens, users earn rewards in $CELR tokens and additionally a portion of fees paid to SGN from transactions utilizing one of the services provided by Celer.

Fees earned by staking in SGN are earned in the tokens used to pay the fees, simply put you earn a basket of various tokens from $ETH, stablecoins and a whole list of other tokens. While an interesting proposition, it may take some time before it is economically viable to withdraw the earned fees on tokens received in smaller amounts.