Uniswap v4 taps Celo’s low fees to bring DeFi to the masses

Uniswap v4 has deployed on Celo to access its 600,000 daily active users, leveraging sub-cent fees to make advanced, hook-driven DeFi a practical reality for a global, mobile-first audience.

According to a press release shared with crypto.news on Oct. 20, the Celo Foundation has officially activated Uniswap v4 on its Ethereum Layer-2 network. This integration brings the protocol’s powerful new hooks feature to Celo’s ecosystem, directly targeting its base of over 600,000 daily active users.

The foundation said the move is designed to leverage Celo’s sub-cent transaction fees, making the advanced, customizable functionalities of v4 economically viable for a global, mobile-first audience.

Notably, Celo co-founder Marek Olszewski characterized the deployment as a “major advancement” for the network’s DeFi ecosystem and the broader global crypto community.

“We built Celo to make financial tools accessible to users throughout the world, a mission that Uniswap is driving forward through its cost-effective, intuitive solutions. The deployment has been eagerly awaited by the community, and we’re excited to bring innovative hooks to make DeFi more customizable for developers,” Olszewski said.

Hooks bring programmable liquidity to Celo’s expanding DeFi base

Uniswap v4’s defining feature, known as “Hooks,” represents a fundamental shift in how liquidity can be structured on decentralized exchanges. Think of Hooks as programmable plugins that allow developers to embed custom logic directly into a pool’s lifecycle.

These smart contracts can trigger actions at key moments, such as before or after a swap, or when liquidity is added or removed, transforming a static liquidity pool into a dynamic financial instrument.

On a network like Celo, where cost is a primary concern, the ability to build complex, automated financial products without incurring prohibitive gas fees is a game-changer. It enables the creation of on-chain limit orders, custom fee structures for specific assets, or time-weighted liquidity provisions that were previously too expensive or complex to deploy at scale.

The deployment builds upon a proven track record established by Uniswap v3, which launched on Celo in July 2022. That integration has seen remarkable growth, increasing more than 15x year-over-year to process over $1.62 billion in transaction volume during 2024, the foundation said.

Celo’s DeFi footprint has expanded rapidly in parallel. Aave and Velodrome joined the network earlier this year, while newer projects like Self Protocol are using zero-knowledge verification to link identity and yield. Mento Labs’ development of region-specific digital currencies further illustrates how Celo’s ecosystem is evolving toward localized, human-centered finance.