What is Celestia (TIA): A Beginner’s Guide

Celestia (TIA) is widely recognized as the first modular blockchain network. It is at the forefront of the blockchain modularity movement, which seeks to create highly scalable networks optimized to perform specific functions. Interestingly, Celestia is also at the centre of the Ethereum layer two (L2) growth story as new L2 chains are using its data availability solutions.

Overall, this blockchain project is poised for growth, and its native token, TIA, is seeing a surge in investor interest. So, are you interested in learning what Celestia is? You have come to the right place. In this Celestia review, we will discuss everything from the project’s history to its tokenomics. Sit back, relax and keep reading.

Celestia (TIA) Review: Summary

This beginner’s guide to the Celestia blockchain explains how this project provides data availability solutions that rollups and layer two (L2) chains can use. We will begin by discussing important technical terms that will help us better understand Celestia and the broader blockchain sector. Thereafter, we will cover the Celestia Network’s history, founders, core development team, and vision in detail.

The second half of the article will discuss the tokenomics of the TIA token. By the end of the article, you will be well-versed in how Celestia is enabling rollups and L2 chains to scale. You will also learn the difference between Celestia and traditional monolithic blockchains. We have also included a section with recommendations for top crypto wallets compatible with the Celestia Network.

Terms You Need to Know Before Understanding Celestia

Here are the key technical terms you need to know before understanding Celestia:

What is Celestia (TIA)?

Celestia is a data availability network that blockchains use to publish their transaction data. Celestia holds a crucial position in the ongoing expansion of the rollup and L2 sector. Ethereum‘s rollup-centric scaling roadmap primarily drives the rise of L2. Celestia has found itself at the centre of this growth story by offering a dedicated platform to rollups and other blockchains to publish their data.

Celestia itself is a PoS blockchain created using the Cosmos software development kit (SDK). The Celestia blockchain uses a modified version of Cosmos’ Tendermint consensus algorithm that enables it to partition block data into multiple sections for every rollup and L2 connected to it for data availability.

Unlike other blockchains, Celestia is not designed for transaction execution but rather for consensus and data availability. Its main purpose is to enable developers to launch and scale their custom blockchains by providing an external layer that can handle consensus and data availability. Such a setup allows developers to launch blockchains without needing a validator set. It also enables projects to focus on optimizing their chains for transaction execution and specific applications.

History of Celestia Crypto

Celestia was originally known as LazyLedger up until its rebranding in June 2021. The origins of the project date back to 2019 when Mustafa Al-Bassam published a whitepaper describing a distributed data availability ledger called LazyLedger.

In December 2021, Celestia launched its devnet. In May 2022, Celestia announced the launch of its test called “Mamaki.” A few months later, in October 2022, the project reported that it had raised $55 million from investors such as Bain Capital Crypto, Polychain Capital, and Jump Crypto. At the time, blockchain projects such as Eclipse, Constellation, and dYmension had already chosen Celestia to be their data availability layer.

In September 2023, Celestia announced the launch of its native token, TIA. The project allocated 6% of TIA’s total supply for the genesis TIA airdrop. TIA tokens were airdropped to recipients on October 31, 2023, at the launch of Celestia’s mainnet.

About the Celestia Team

Celestia Labs, the core development team behind Celestia, was co-founded by Mustafa Al-Bassam and Ismail Khoffi.

Al-Bassam graduated from University College London in 2020 with a Ph.D degree in computer science. Previously, he co-founded a smart contract platform called Chainspace, which was acquired by Meta (formerly Facebook) in 2019. Al-Bassam serves as the CEO of Celestia Labs.

Khoffi is the CTO of Celestia Labs. He was a former software engineer at Tendermint Inc. and the Interchain Foundation.

Al-Bassam and Khoffi are members of the Foundation Council, which governs the Celestia Foundation, a non-profit organization that oversees the growth of the Celestia ecosystem. Batuhan Dasgin and Reinhold Wohlwend made up the four-member Foundation Council.

Vision of the Celestia Blockchain Project

Celestia is powering a new movement in blockchain design that is known as blockchain modularity. Older-generation blockchains such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are designed to handle everything from transaction execution to settlement and consensus to data availability. Such blockchains are known as monolithic blockchains. However, modern blockchains are designed to specialize and optimize for a given function. These blockchains are known as modular blockchains.

Celestia helps modular blockchains (typically rollups and L2 chains) scale by allowing them to offload consensus and data availability functions to it. Such a setup removes the need for nodes of rollups and L2 chains to download, process, and validate every historical transaction. Rollups and L2 chains can instead focus on scaling. Moreover, the modular blockchain design decouples execution, settlement, and consensus layer; the rollups and L2 chains connected to Celestia are highly customizable.

Over the long run, Celestia aims to scale its blocks to 1 gigabytes to allow its rollup ecosystem to support high throughput.

What Problems Does Celestia (TIA) Solve?

Here is a summary of the problems that Celestia solves:

Celestia (TIA) Tokenomics

TIA is the native token of Celestia. The token is central to Celestia’s economy as it is used to facilitate payments for the network’s data availability solutions. TIA’s token supply, distribution, and unlock schedule have been hot topics of debate within the crypto sector, as incessant release of TIA tokens into its circulating supply has hurt its price performance.

In this section, we will discuss the supply, distribution, utility, and governance properties of the TIA token.

TIA Token Supply

Here are the important tokenomic details you need to know about the TIA token, according to CoinMarketCap and Mintscan:

TIA Coin Distribution & Allocation

Here is how the initial token supply of 1 billion TIA tokens was distributed:

Celestia Utility & Use Cases

Here is a summary of the TIA token’s use cases:

TIA’s Governance & Protocol Control

Celestia Network allows TIA holders and stakers to propose and vote on network parameter changes and improvement proposals. The project’s governance structure also gives TIA holders the power to vote on how to use funds within Celestia’s community pool. For context, Celestia’s community pool is a treasury that receives 2% of all Celestia’s block rewards.

How Does Celestia Work?

Data availability is a process that verifies whether transaction data has been published. Nodes verify data availability by downloading all transaction data. If the nodes can download all the transaction data, then it proves that the block was published to the network.

However, downloading the entire history of transactions can be resource-intensive on nodes, especially as a blockchain network grows and the amount of transaction data increases. To make data availability more efficient and scalable, Celestia uses two key features: data availability sampling (DAS) and Name-Spaced Merkle trees (NMTs).

DAS is a mechanism where light nodes on Celestia verify data availability without having to download all data for a block. Instead, light nodes conduct multiple rounds of random sampling for small portions of data. As light nodes complete more rounds of random sampling, it increases the confidence that data is available. Finally, light nodes will consider the block data available once a predetermined confidence level (e.g., 99%) is reached.

NMTs are a mechanism used by the Celestia data availability layer to partition block data into multiple groups (called namespaces) for every rollup and L2. Such a setup allows rollups and L2 chains to download their data and ignore the rest.

Architecture Behind the TIA Coin

Celestia’s native token, TIA, is an integral part of the network’s economy. Modular blockchains that have integrated Celestia’s data availability layer within their system are required to make payments in TIA to publish data on Celestia. The network uses a standard gas-price prioritized mempool, which means that transactions that pay higher fees are prioritized and, therefore, executed faster.

Since Celestia provides a foundational layer for developers to easily launch their blockchains, TIA plays a special role in making blockchain launches more frictionless and easier. Instead of planning a native token launch and adding gas fee mechanics, developers launching new chains can simply use TIA gas as their gas fee token and native currency.

Celestia Blockchain Structure

Celestia’s data availability solution is made up of a PoS blockchain. Celestia’s developers call this blockchain the celestia-app. The blockchain was developed using the Cosmos SDK. It uses a modified version of Cosmos’ Tendermint consensus mechanism, which enables data protection and recovery via a technique called erasure coding. Celestia’s blockchain is also modified to store block space in an efficient manner via a technique called NMTs.

There are two types of nodes within Celestia’s modular blockchain network: Consensus nodes and data availability nodes.

Consensus nodes are made up of validators who are responsible for producing blocks, and full nodes that are responsible for storing the blockchain’s entire history.

Data availability nodes consist of bridge nodes that connect data availability nodes and consensus nodes, full storage nodes that store all data, and light nodes that conduct DAS.

TIA’s Token Standards & Smart Contracts

Celestia is not designed to execute smart contracts. It is a data availability blockchain network where external chains can publish their data.

Typically, rollups and L2 chains rely on smart contracts to publish and verify data on their parent chains. With Celestia, developers can now create a new type of rollup called “sovereign rollup.” According to Celestia, sovereign rollups do not use smart contracts to publish data on Celestia; instead, they post their blocks directly onto Celestia as raw data.

The Celestia consensus and data availability layer does not interpret or perform any computation or execution tasks on the rollup blocks. Instead, sovereign rollups operate as L1 blockchains and use their own set of full nodes and light nodes to verify the block data that was published on Celestia.

The biggest advantage that sovereign rollups hold over smart contract rollups is that the former upgrades through forks like a L1 blockchain. Network nodes cannot be forced to accept the software upgrades. Such a setup lets the community decide whether they agree to the new changes or not. In contrast, upgrading a smart contract rollup requires only the owners of the smart contract to accept and initiate the changes.

Scalability & Performance

Celestia overcomes its scalability challenges with the help of a technique called DAS. As we explained earlier, as a blockchain grows, it becomes increasingly resource-intensive for its nodes to store historical data. On Celestia, light nodes are not required to download all data for a block. Instead, they sample random portions of data to determine the availability of data.

As the number of light nodes grows, the network will be able to download and store more data. According to Celestia, any improvement in the bandwidth capacity of its light nodes has a quadratic effect on the data throughput of its data availability layer.

Over time, Celestia aims to provide 1GB blocks to have enough capacity to scale large numbers of rollups

Celestia Blockchain Explained: Key Features

Here is a summary of the key features of Celestia:

Pros & Cons of TIA Coin

Celestia Analytics

In this section, we look at important on-chain metrics of the Celestia Network to learn more about the blockchain project.

On-Chain Metrics

Here are interesting stats and key on-chain metrics that TIA investors will find insightful:

What Do Experts Think About Celestia (TIA)?

Asset management firm VanEck praised Celestia’s DAS technique in a report, calling it a “breakthrough” that lets even simple devices like smartphones verify block data.

VanEck added that this innovation in blockchain technology could enable scalability to “skyrocket” without sacrificing decentralization. However, VanEck noted complexity and adoption as key risks to Celestia’s growth.

Elsewhere, in an emailed note titled “Is Celestia a threat to Ethereum?” crypto analyst Michael Nadeau said Celestia is “100x cheaper” than Ethereum for data availability. Moreover, Celestia could allow developers to integrate their chains across other L2s and “even with Solana (SOL).”

Nadeau added that Celestia could become “one of the most important protocols in web3” if it attracts the largest rollups and new entrants and connects them to provide a seamless user experience.

Ultimately, we view a bet on Celestia as a bet on the expansion of web3 (blockchain proliferation on the scale of websites) and a hedge against Ethereum and its ability to successfully execute the L2 roadmap. As noted, Celestia needs to attract the largest and most successful rollups + the majority of new entrants. Full stop. Why? It needs to land the biggest customers and then connect them all, so that a seamless UX can be created for future builders that want to access users and data across ALL chains while making the data accessible for anyone to verify.

Is Celestia (TIA) a Buy?

TIA is among the most popular new entrants in the crypto market. TIA token initially outperformed the rival tokens in the cryptocurrency space by rising to an all-time high of over $20 within the first six months of its debut. However, token unlocks and high staking inflation have increased selling pressure on TIA. However, Celestia continues to be viewed as an important crypto project that could benefit from the growth of the rollup and L2 sector.

If you are interested in buying the TIA token, you should always do your own research (DYOR). Your decision to buy TIA should depend on your risk tolerance, market outlook, available capital, and financial goals. For readers wondering where to buy Celestia (TIA) tokens?

Centralized crypto exchanges (CEX) such as Binance and Bybit provide user-friendly interfaces and convenient features. If you choose to buy TIA, consider using these top-tier exchanges. To know the step-by-step process of buying TIA, you can check out our dedicated ‘how to buy Celestia (TIA)‘ guide. 

You can also check out our exclusive Celestia Price Prediction guide to learn what price the TIA token could be trading at in 2030.

Top Wallets To Store TIA Coin

Non-custodial crypto wallets give you full control and ownership of your digital assets. They also let you seamlessly interact with DeFi applications, blockchain games, and NFT marketplaces. Below are some of the top crypto wallets that support TIA:

Pro Tip: You can also take a look at Best Wallet, the most popular mobile wallet of 2025. It doesn’t support Celestia yet, but it offers everything you could need. Think of it as a one-stop shop for all things crypto. The best part? Investors get access to crypto presales.

Conclusion: What is Celestia (TIA)?

Celestia is leading a shift in blockchain architecture by enabling rollups and L2 chains to pursue modular design that separates consensus, settlement, and execution. The blockchain modularity movement is enabling developers to build highly scalable, optimized, and custom rollups that are not constrained by the limitations of traditional monolithic chains. Celestia has positioned itself at the centre of this movement and is expected to benefit as the L2 sector expands.

See Also:

• What is Mantle (MNT): A Beginner’s Guide
• What is Helium (HNT): A Beginner’s Guide
• What is Near Protocol (NEAR): A Beginner’s Guide

References

• “Basics about Cryptocurrency.” SUNY Oswego, www.oswego.edu/cts/basics-about-cryptocurrency
• “Cryptocurrency Research Guide.” UNC Charlotte Library Research Guides, https://guides.library.charlotte.edu/cryptocurrency
• Celestia. Sovereign Rollups: An Introduction. Celestia, https://celestia.org/learn/intermediates/sovereign-rollups-an-introduction/.
• CoinMarketCap. Celestia (TIA) Price, Charts, and News. CoinMarketCap, https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/celestia/.
• Celestia. Sovereign Rollup Chains. Celestia Blog, https://blog.celestia.org/sovereign-rollup-chains/.
• Celestia. Monolithic vs Modular. Celestia Docs, https://docs.celestia.org/learn/how-celestia-works/monolithic-vs-modular.