Celestia (TIA): The World's First Modular Blockchain Project

Celestia with its TIA token airdrop, has become a topic of discussion in various communities. Moreover, Celestia has earned the unicorn title as its estimated valuation surpasses US$1 billion (IDR 15.6 trillion). Let's delve deeper into this promising blockchain project that emphasizes scalability, security, and decentralization.

What is Celestia?

Celestia is a blockchain network with a modular approach, aiming to address scalability issues prevalent in traditional (monolithic) blockchain systems. Setting itself apart, Celestia separates execution from consensus and implements a key feature called Data Availability Sampling (DAS).

Rollup and layer 2 projects utilize Celestia as a network for publishing and making transaction data available for anyone to download. For them, this modular blockchain provides high-throughput Data Availability with easy verification for lightweight nodes.

This crypto project offers secure scalability with a growing user base, enabling anyone to launch their own blockchain. The platform launched its mainnet network at the end of October 2023.

Celestia's Development Team and Investors

The founder of Celestia Labs is Mustafa Al-Bassam, who also serves as the CEO. A PhD holder, he co-founded Chainspace, a project later acquired by Facebook. Known as a researcher and hacker, Al-Bassam founded the Lulzsec hacking group at the age of 16, which gained fame for successful breaches at institutions like Sony, Fox, FBI, and even the CIA in 2011.

Additionally, Chief Research Officer John Adler, formerly a scalability researcher at ConsenSys, is renowned for creating Optimistic Rollup, inspired by Mustafa's thoughts on data availability.

The Celestia founding team also includes CTO Ismail Khoffi, a former senior engineer at Tendermint and Google UK. He established an academic research prototype to bridge the gap between blockchain and non-blockchain production.

In October 2023, the blockchain project secured $55 million in funding, with major investors being Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital. Other participating investors include industry giants like Galaxy, Delphi Digital, Blockchain Capital, NFX, Binance Labs, and Coinbase Ventures.

How Celestia Works

Modular Blockchain Celestia (TIA) / source: Celestia.org

Celestia's approach to addressing scalability issues as a modular blockchain differs from monolithic blockchains. Its architecture separates layers in the blockchain to perform specific functions. Here's how it works:

1. Modular Design: By dividing execution and consensus responsibilities, Celestia allows more flexibility and scalability.

2. Data Availability Sampling (DAS): This feature enables nodes to process only transactions relevant to their needs, reducing network load and improving efficiency.

3. Security and Resource Efficiency: Technologies like DAS and proof of fraud/validity are used to provide security to lightweight nodes comparable to full nodes but with lower resource requirements.

4. Architecture: This architecture aligns with scalable and decentralized protocols, aiming to support a large user base without compromising decentralization or security.

Celestia's Features

Here are some features that strengthen Celestia's position:

1. Data Availability Sampling (DAS)

This feature allows nodes to process only relevant transactions, reducing network load and improving efficiency. It differs from the monolithic blockchain's approach, which requires downloading entire blocks.

With DAS, light nodes (nodes that don't store all data) only need to download a small portion of a block. Afterward, the light node samples the downloaded data multiple times. When the sampling results reach a specified confidence level of 99%, the data in that block is considered available.

2. Sovereign Rollup

An essential feature Celestia offers is the creation of Sovereign Rollup technology. In essence, this is an independent rollup or blockchain that can be self-managed by a development team. Unlike Ethereum, this modular blockchain won't perform traditional execution. Instead, it prepares block space intended for compressed data from the rollup.

With this mechanism, the rollup won't share block space with smart contract applications, reducing concerns about congestion. Additionally, what makes the rollup independent is that full nodes determine their fork rules. In other words, they can fork as they wish without being hindered or requiring Celestia's approval.

3. Rollkit

With Rollkit, developers no longer need to worry about the complex challenges in implementing a new blockchain. Rollkit acts as a community-based platform to provide developers with tools to launch dApps through a modular stack. Rollkit is Celestia's implementation that makes Sovereign Rollup easy and practical.

Rollkit works by allowing the rollup to leverage the base layer for consensus. Thus, developers don't need to build their consensus network. At the same time, it inherits the security of Celestia's data availability layer. This also eliminates the need for a complete validator set and reduces technical barriers for developers.

Advantages of Celestia

Celestia is designed to offer several key benefits to web3 developers in scalability, shared security, and sovereignty. Here are the advantages of this project:

• Scalability: Higher throughput for verification as the blockchain scales with the number of nodes in the network.
• Shared Security: Numerous blockchains can now operate with high-security standards through Celestia's common security layer.
• Sovereignty: Developers are free to choose their execution environment, such as EVM, Solana VM, and others.

TIA Token and Its Uses

The Celestia blockchain has its native token, TIA. The purpose of the TIA token includes payment for rollups wishing to publish data in Celestia's blobspace. Additionally, the token helps maintain network security through Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus. Users can stake TIA to participate, and developers can use TIA as gas fees for rollups.

Celestia's Tokenomics

TIA Token Alocation at Genesis / source: Celestia.org

TIA token has a total supply of 1 billion, with the current circulating supply being 14.1% (141 million TIA). Thus, 20% of the total TIA supply is allocated for public distribution through testnet incentives or future initiatives. One incentive is the Celestia genesis airdrop, distributing 60 million TIA tokens at Celestia's mainnet launch.

Meanwhile, the TIA token has an inflation rate of 8% for the first year. This inflation rate will decrease by 10% per year until eventually reaching a limit of 1.5%.

Celestia's Project Potential

Celestia co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam stated that modular blockchain would define the next decade of web3 innovation, claiming to solve the challenges of deploying and scaling blockchains.

Over the last decade, he mentioned that the crypto world has been hindered by an endless loop of various new monolithic layer-1 smart contract platforms. Each competes to sacrifice decentralization and security for cheaper transaction fees.

"Web3 cannot scale within the confines of a monolithic framework. We envision a blockchain ecosystem with modular data availability layers and execution environments, all seamlessly integrated. We believe modular blockchain is the next generation of scalable blockchain architecture," explained Mustafa Al-Bassam.

Bain Capital Crypto Partner Alex Evans stated that modular design unlocks rapid experimentation across the decentralized application (dApp) stack.

"By minimizing complexity at the base layer, Celestia offers a cleaner abstraction for developers and greater sovereignty for the user community. The pace of development in the Celestia community is truly remarkable, and we are thrilled to support this growing ecosystem," expressed Alex Evans.

How to Buy Celestia (TIA) Tokens

Celestia's crypto token (TIA) is listed on major exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, and Bybit. Here's how to buy TIA with Rupiah on the Binance crypto exchange.

1. Create an account on Binance

2. Open a new account to buy cryptocurrency. Also, complete identity verification. Typically, the verification process takes about 1 day. If you already have a verified account, you can log in to the app to buy TIA or trade.

3. Search for TIA in the search column & Type TIA in the search column at the top of the front page. Various Spot and Futures options for TIA with various trading pairs like TIA/USDT or TIABUSD will appear.

4. Check details and fees, You have 1 minute to confirm the transaction with the latest price. After 1 minute, there will be a recalculation according to the market price.

5. Make the payment Various payment methods are available on Binance:

6. Bank Deposit (BBK): Transfer Rupiah from a bank account to Binance. Then, use the deposit balance to buy Ethereum.

7. Credit and Debit Card: For users buying crypto for the first time, payment options with credit and debit cards are the easiest.

8. Store in a wallet, After buying TIA tokens, you can store them in a private crypto wallet or in the wallet available on the crypto exchange. Additionally, you can use this token on DEX or stake it for passive income.

Celestia Airdrop

Celestia previously announced the release of 60 million TIA tokens as part of the Genesis Drop. These tokens were distributed to 576,653 wallet addresses that met the requirements. Some of the requirements included being an active user on the Ethereum layer-2 network and Cosmos with a wallet balance equivalent to US$50 before January 1, 2023.

The 60 million TIA tokens represent around 6% of the total 1 billion token supply. The crypto airdrop period ended on October 17, 2023.

Celestia (TIA) Coin Price

Conclusion

As the first modular blockchain, Celestia undoubtedly offers scalability solutions different from existing ones. This makes the blockchain project have intriguing potential in the future. The presence of Celestia will also make competition and development in the blockchain industry even more competitive. Always do your research (DYOR) before deciding to transact in any blockchain project, and invest funds you are willing to lose.

What are your thoughts on this crypto news? Share your opinions in our Telegram. Don't forget to follow Wanda Finance on WhastApp, Facebook and Twitter (X) to stay updated on the latest crypto news!

Disclaimer: All information contained on our site is published in good faith and is intended to provide general information only. Any actions taken by readers based on information from our site are their own responsibility.