Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the US-based venture capital fund, has picked T-Systems MMS validator group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, to delegate its native Celo assets.
It has been reported that T-Systems MMS is running the validator nodes via the company's Open Telekom Cloud, which reportedly delivers robust security capabilities. As previously reported, Deutsche Telekom invested in Celo back in April, which became the first telecommunications firm to join the Celo Alliance for Prosperity.
However, the company also purchased a significant amount of the mobile decentralized finance platform's native token, CELO. T-Systems MMS is staking its parent company's CELO tokens as well as other Celo-based assets held by a16z.
The report said that a16z has been a supporter of Celo and has regularly participated in capital raises for the open-source blockchain payments project. Back in April 2019, a16z joined Polychain Capital and other investors in a $30 million funding round for Celo.
Katie Huan, the General Partner of a16z, said:
“Electing a diverse set of globally distributed validators is critical to maintaining a blockchain network that is secure and technically robust. We partnered with Deutsche Telekom because their incentives align with Celo's vision of building a global payment platform that can be used by anyone with just a mobile phone.”
Likewise, apart from Celo, T-Systems MMS is a node operator on Chainlink, with the company also providing support infrastructure for Flow, another blockchain project.
Andreas Dittrich, the Blockchain Head of a16z, described public blockchains as “the future of value-based collaboration.”
Like the rest of the crypto market, CELO is currently experiencing a significant downturn since setting a new all-time high of almost $7 back in April.
Thus, as with other altcoins, CELO’s price decline has seen the token lose close to 74% from its April high.
Source: Cointelegraph