A simple introduction to Celestia
Celestia went live on mainnet in late 2023 and was designed to solve a long‑standing problem in blockchain architecture: monolithic blockchains perform consensus, data availability and execution on the same network.
While this design secures networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it restricts scalability and forces all applications to share the same capacity. Analysts at VanEck note that most blockchains still replicate entire data sets across every node, limiting flexibility and throughput.
Celestia takes a different approach. Instead of executing smart contracts or acting as a settlement layer, it focuses on one thing: making transaction data available. Developers can then plug in whatever execution environment or settlement layer they want on top.
At the heart of Celestia’s design is Data Availability Sampling (DAS).
Instead of downloading an entire block of data to verify it, Celestia light‑nodes randomly sample small chunks of the block. If enough samples are retrieved, the node can be mathematically certain that the whole block is available.
This innovation dramatically reduces bandwidth requirements and allows even smartphones to verify the network. Celestia also introduces namespaced Merkle trees (NMTs) to structure data, enabling rollups to isolate their data blobs and prove availability without interference.
How Celestia works and what it is used for
Celestia is built with the Cosmos SDK and uses a proof‑of‑stake consensus mechanism. The initial validator set has 100 nodes, and any TIA holder can delegate to a validator to help secure the network. Validators earn rewards from block production and share them with delegators after taking a commission.
TIA inflation started at 8 % per year and, after a series of upgrades in 2025, has been reduced to around 2.5 % with a long‑term target of 1.5 %. Beyond staking, TIA has several roles:
- Paying for blobspace – Developers submit PayForBlobs transactions to publish data. Fees are denominated in TIA.
- Bootstrapping new rollups – Projects can use TIA as the gas token and currency for their rollup, avoiding the need to create a separate token.
- Governance – TIA holders can vote on network parameters and decide how to use community‑pool funds.
This modular design means Celestia does not compete with execution environments like Ethereum or Solana; instead it provides data availability for them.
Rollups and application‑specific blockchains (“app‑chains”) can post their transaction data to Celestia, letting them scale cheaply without running their own validator set.
Fees are significantly lower than posting data to Ethereum. A 2026 analysis by BlockEden found that rollups paid roughly $0.07 per megabyte to store data on Celestia, compared with $3.83/MB on Ethereum—a 55× cost advantage.
As a result, Celestia processed over 160 GB of rollup data by early 2026 and commanded roughly 50 % market share in the data‑availability sector.
Celestia’s position in the crypto landscape
Celestia occupies a unique niche. By unbundling data availability from execution, it turns blockspace into a commodity that developers can purchase on demand. This separation lets projects choose the execution environment (EVM, Solana’s SVM, Move, etc.) and settlement layer (Ethereum, Cosmos, Bitcoin) that best fits their needs. VanEck describes Celestia’s modular thesis as “building blocks like Lego pieces”. Rollups can be quickly deployed and scaled independently, reducing congestion and enabling application‑specific chains to operate at web‑scale.
The network’s cost efficiency has made it particularly attractive to next‑generation rollups. BlockEden notes that Celestia’s economics create a fly‑wheel: lower data fees attract more rollups, more rollups generate more fee revenue, and greater utilization justifies investment in higher throughput. Celestia’s roadmap includes Fibre technology, which promises 1 terabyte per second of blockspace and millisecond‑level latency, enabling billions of micro‑transactions. With these upgrades, Celestia aims to compete not with existing blockchains but with centralized cloud infrastructure, making on‑chain applications as scalable as traditional internet services.
Projects using Celestia today and those in development
Adoption has accelerated rapidly. By February 2025, more than 20 rollups had integrated Celestia and collectively published over 75 GB of data. By January 2026, this figure had grown to 160 GB. Below are some notable projects (existing and upcoming) leveraging Celestia’s data availability layer:
High‑volume rollups and L2 networks
| Project | Description & Celestia integration | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Eclipse | A Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) rollup that settles to Ethereum. Eclipse uses Celestia for data availability, combining Solana’s high‑speed execution with Ethereum’s security. BlockEden reports that Eclipse has published over 83 GB of data to Celestia—more than half of the network’s total volume. | Mainnet live (2025) |
| Manta Pacific | A high‑throughput ZK rollup built on the OP Stack; it uses Celestia’s DA layer and “Universal Circuits” technology to build privacy‑preserving dApps. | Mainnet beta (2024); expanding ecosystem |
| Plume Network | A rollup optimized for real‑world assets (RWA). Plume publishes tokenized asset transaction data to Celestia and aims to bring institutional adoption to blockchain. | Testnet/early mainnet |
| Deri Protocol | Multichain derivatives platform offering options, futures and complex DeFi products. Uses Celestia for DA to provide high‑frequency trading data. | Live |
| Aevo & Orderly Network | Derivatives exchanges that employ Celestia to post high‑frequency order data. Both target on‑chain perpetuals and options. | Live |
| Alpha Dune / Curio / LightLink | Game‑focused rollups (Alpha Dune and Curio) and enterprise‑grade L2 (LightLink) built on Celestia. They leverage Celestia’s high throughput to support gaming and account‑abstraction features. | In development / live |
| Movement Labs & Zeko | Movement Labs brings the Move programming language to Celestia and other networks, while Zeko offers zero‑knowledge cross‑chain scaling built on Mina and Celestia. | Development |
| Astria | A decentralized sequencing layer that provides shared sequencing for multiple rollups. Astria integrates Celestia DA and can be used as a rollup‑as‑a‑service provider. | Testnet |
Frameworks and service providers
Beyond individual rollups, major frameworks now offer Celestia as a data‑availability option. The Arbitrum Orbit program, OP Stack, and Polygon’s CDK integrate Celestia so developers can choose between Ethereum DA, EigenLayer and Celestia.
Rollup‑as‑a‑Service platforms like Caldera, Conduit, AltLayer and Gelato provide one‑click deployment tools and default support for Celestia. This ease of integration explains why analysts list 26 rollups using Celestia by early 2026.
Cross‑chain and infrastructure tools
The Celestia ecosystem also includes analytics platforms (Numia, Range), cross‑chain messaging (Axelar, Hyperlane, Wormhole), explorers (Mintscan, Celenium) and specialized VMs (Cartesi, Move). These components show that Celestia isn’t just a data layer but a modular stack around which an entire ecosystem of tools and services is forming.
Why delegate your TIA to our validator
For TIA holders, staking is both a way to support the network and earn rewards. Delegating to a reliable validator ensures that your stake contributes to network security while you share in the block rewards. Here are a few reasons to consider delegating to p2pstaking.org:
- Expertise in PoS networks – We operate validators across Cosmos ecosystems and have a proven track record of uptime and security.
- Competitive fees – Our commission rates are transparent and designed to maximise your staking rewards. Since validators take a cut of the rewards, choosing a low‑fee operator significantly impacts returns.
- Governance commitment – Our Celestia validator has recently launched, so we have not yet participated in on-chain votes. Going forward, we intend to vote whenever possible, prioritizing proposals that support greater decentralization, stronger network resilience, and better protocol efficiency.
- Support for new rollups – As more projects launch on Celestia, our validator infrastructure scales to provide reliable data availability. By delegating to us, you indirectly support the builders who are leveraging Celestia’s modular design to create new DeFi, gaming and cross‑chain applications.
Conclusion
Celestia is not just another blockchain; it is a data‑availability network that unbundles blockspace from execution.
Its Data Availability Sampling and namespaced Merkle trees allow even lightweight devices to verify large blocks. Fees for posting data are dramatically lower than on Ethereum, enabling rollups like Eclipse and Manta Pacific to scale transactions without breaking their treasuries.
As the ecosystem continues to grow—with gaming rollups, derivative platforms, real‑world asset networks and rollup‑as‑a‑service providers—it becomes clear that Celestia’s modular approach is reshaping how blockchains are built.
If you’re holding TIA, staking is the best way to participate in this vision. By delegating to a trusted validator like p2pstaking.org, you not only earn rewards but also help secure the infrastructure powering the next generation of rollups and app‑chains. The modular era is here, and Celestia is at its core.
