Token Terminal dropped a simple but loud chart yesterday: Celo’s monthly revenue is up roughly 10× since January 2024.

The caption? “Gradually, then suddenly.”
You know exactly which book that line comes from.

For years the yellow line hugged the bottom of the chart. Then, sometime in late 2024 / early 2025, it ripped straight up and hasn’t really looked back.

What “revenue” actually means here

On most chains, the revenue number Token Terminal reports is essentially the total transaction fees users paid that month (supply-side fees). Higher revenue = a lot more activity on the chain, whether that’s DeFi, stablecoin transfers, NFT mints, or — let’s be honest — meme-coin degens aping in and out of the flavor of the week.

Why now?

A few things lined up perfectly:

1. Celo became an Ethereum L2 (OP Stack) earlier in the cycle. Suddenly it has Ethereum security, sub-cent fees, and full compatibility with the rest of the Ethereum ecosystem while keeping its phone-number-style addresses and mobile-first focus.

2. MiniPay (the ultra-light wallet built into Opera Mini browser) kept onboarding real users in Africa and other emerging markets at a steady clip. Hundreds of thousands of wallets, real stablecoin volume, very little hype.

3. 2025 meme season spilled over. Low-fee Ethereum L2s are catnip for launchpads and traders. When Base and Blast get congested or expensive, capital looks for the next cheap playground. Celo has been quietly collecting that flow.

Put those together in a bull market and you get the hockey-stick everyone is now noticing.

Does the revenue stick?

The real test is whether the current ~$80–100 k monthly run-rate (depending on the exact end point of the chart) keeps climbing or plateaus. So far the slope is still pointing up, which suggests the flywheel is still spinning.

For CELO token holders the implications are straightforward: more fees → more value flowing toward staking rewards and the community reserve (assuming the economics still work that way post-L2 transition).

Bottom line

Celo spent years building in the shadows with a “real-world use case” narrative while most of CT chased shiny new L1s. Now the on-chain data is doing the talking, and it’s saying the chain is finally busy.

Original post: https://x.com/tokenterminal/status/1991453388635357193

If you’ve been sleeping on Celo, the revenue chart just woke you up.