Celestia: the First Modular Blockchain

Celestia is the first modular blockchain. Modular blockchain networks aim to increase throughput by splitting various tasks into segments to help the blockchain scale without compromising security. 

Celestia is developing a modular blockchain architecture to solve problems around deploying and scaling blockchains. It decouples consensus from its execution layer, therefore allowing developers to spin up their own blockchains at scale and avoid being bottlenecked by state execution of current Layer-1 networks.

The goal is to move beyond monolithic blockchains, such as Ethereum and Solana, which have struggled with scalability and outage issues, and build a flexible modular network that developers can use without scalability limitations.

What Is Celestia?

Celestia is a stripped-down minimalist Layer-1 blockchain that offers users the infrastructure to deploy their own blockchain applications or Layer-2 rollups. Unlike existing Layer-1 blockchains, Celestia does not handle smart contracts or perform computations. Instead, these functions are outsourced to rollups or other blockchains thanks to Celestia’s flexible, modular design. Celestia also provides customizable features that allow users to choose their own execution environments. 

For example, developers building Web3 applications on the Celestia network can mix and match different kinds of infrastructure and still be interoperable. In addition, a DAO can leverage Celestia’s infrastructure to deploy its own blockchain while preserving its autonomy and rules.

What Is Celestia For?

Celestia makes it easier for anyone with the technical know-how to deploy their own blockchain at minimal expense. While Celestia will support all flavors of rollups, it is initially focused on the EVM and Cosmos SDK. Celestia itself is built on the Cosmos SDK and uses Tendermint as its consensus engine.

Celestia Roadmap

Celestia recently launched its mainnet on October 31, 2023. The development team released an MVP in 2021, followed by a Devnet in November 2021. The testnet was introduced in May 2022, and the highly anticipated mainnet was officially released in 2023.

Before the mainnet launch, the team initiated the Incentivized Testnet Blockspace Race program, attracting a remarkable one thousand participants. This Blockspace Race marked the largest incentivized testnet regarding participant count for any layer 1 project. Among the participants, the top 75 winners have been identified. These 75 validators play a crucial role in launching the Mainnet. Everstake is proud to be one of the validators contributing to the operation of the Mainnet. Following this, the validator community is anticipated to expand to achieve a total of 100 validators.

Celestia has its native token, TIA, which serves various purposes:

• Payment for Blobspace: Rollups pay to publish data to Celestia’s blobspace using TIA.
• Gas Token for Rollups: Developers have the option to utilize TIA as a gas token for their rollups.
• Network Security: Users can stake TIA to engage in the consensus process and secure Celestia blockchain

Additionally, Celestia currently offers support for four wallets, allowing users to easily control and manage their TIA: Keplr Wallet, Cosmostation, Leap, and Ledger.

Celestia also introduced Blobstream, previously known as the Quantum Gravity Bridge (QGB). Blobstream streams Celestia’s modular data availability layer to Ethereum by relaying data root commitments using an on-chain light client.

How Does Celestia Work Now?

Celestia functions as a minimal blockchain, responsible for ordering and publishing transactions but not their execution.

By separating the consensus and application execution layers, Celestia modularizes the blockchain technology stack, offering new possibilities to decentralized application developers.

Celestia’s Proof-of-Stake Mechanism 

Celestia employs a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus protocol based on CometBFT and the Cosmos SDK. The network features in-protocol delegation and starts with an initial set of 100 validators. Following the mainnet launch, users gained the ability to stake TIA. By staking TIA as either a validator or delegator, you can participate in earning staking rewards from the network. Validators may charge a fee to delegators, granting them a share of the staking rewards.

How Are Nodes on Celestia Launched?

Full nodes on Celestia only need to check that the data behind the transactions have been published. They simply order transactions and verify that the data being published has been made available. This is a sharp contrast to Ethereum and Solana nodes that do everything from execution and consensus to data availability within the blockchain. 

Celestia also employs Data Availability Sampling (DAS) technology to achieve scalability. DAS enables light nodes to prove consensus by relying on fraud proofs from full nodes without downloading the entire blockchain. As a result, blocks can be safely made larger as more light nodes are empowered to participate in the network. With blocks made more extensive, the network can scale quickly to allow a more significant number of transactions.

What Types of Nodes Are There on Celestia?

Celestia node operators can run several options on the network. Depending on your hardware and preferences, there are five node options:

• Consensus Validator Node: This node participates in consensus by producing and voting on blocks.
• Consensus Full Node: A Celestia-App Full Node allows you to sync blockchain history in the Celestia Consensus Layer. 
• Data Availability Bridge Node: Bridge nodes connect the data availability layer and the consensus layer while also having the option of becoming a validator.
• Data Availability Full Storage Node: This is a Celestia node that doesn’t connect to the Celestia App (hence not a full node) but stores all the data.
• Data Availability Light Node: A Celestia light node allows you to perform data availability sampling on the data availability (DA) network.

Conclusion

Celestia promises to solve the scalability dilemma that typically plagues monolithic blockchains. With its modular blockchain, Celestia makes it easy to validate its chain and achieve scalability. 

Everstake is a trusted decentralized staking provider catering to over 70 blockchains, including Solana, Cosmos, NEAR, ETH 2.0, Polygon, and Chainlink. We run highly secure and reliable nodes for PoS protocols, using enterprise-level hardware to maintain high-availability nodes and ensure maximum efficiency and security. 

At Everstake, we employ enterprise-level hardware to run nodes on Stride and ensure high security and reliability. We also have a dedicated customer support team on standby 24/7 to help with any issues that may occur.

Feel free to contact our Celestia Blockchain Manager on Twitter for any questions.