Celestia - first modular blockchain

From a technical perspective, Celestia is a stripped-down layer 1 that only does the core things a layer 1 needs to do: it orders transactions and makes data for them available, but in a scalable way. Celestia only orders and publishes any arbitrary data that developers and users throw at it, and does not perform any computation on the data.

As there’s no on-chain smart contract environment in Celestia, all execution happens off-chain, using technologies such as an optimistic rollup. Whereas other layer 1 blockchains follow the “world computer” paradigm, where the chain provides both consensus and execution, Celestia’s goal is to make the blockchain stack more modular by decoupling consensus and execution. Developers can therefore define their own execution layers.

Celestia is a modular blockchain network tackling the blockchain scalability trilemma through its new blockchain architecture that separates the consensus mechanism from the execution layer. Celestia approaches the scalability problem with a completely new blockchain design. Instead of bundling everything together on the blockchain, Celestia offers a modular architecture where the blockchain’s Consensus and Data Availability Layers are separated from its Execution Layer.

The advantage of decoupling the Consensus Layer from the Execution Layer is that instead of having every node execute all transactions on the blockchain, nodes are now free to execute transactions that are specific to their application(s) of choice.

Celestia is currently functioning on a testnet. The mainnet implementation is expected to take place late Q4 2022 or early Q1 2023.

There is no Celestia token yet, but it is planned to be implemented. The token will be used to secure the network via Proof of Stake and to pay transaction fees on the network.

It is possible to test the staking process on the testnet. Testnet tokens can be received from the faucet on Discord to test the network features. These tokens can also be delegated to and undelegated from validators.