Celestia describes itself as “the first modular blockchain network.” Its goal is to “enable anyone to easily deploy their own blockchain with minimal overhead.”

Let’s dive in…

First, what is a modular blockchain?

Instead of one blockchain that does everything, modular blockchains perform specific functions. The aim is to optimize scalability, flexibility, and interoperability. 

What problem is Celestia trying to solve?

“For the past decade, crypto has been bottlenecked by an endless loop of new monolithic [layer 1] smart contract platforms, each racing to the bottom to sacrifice decentralization and security to provide cheaper transaction fees,” said Celestia Labs co-founder.

Celestia aims to allow anyone to create their own blockchain without the cost of building a new consensus network (consensus mechanisms are used to achieve security and trust in a decentralized network). 

How does it work?

Its website offers this analogy: “Think of Celestia as a power grid, except instead of providing electricity, Celestia provides the essential resource to power a blockchain: consensus and data availability. Similar to how anyone can plug into an electricity grid to power their appliance, anyone can plug into Celestia’s network to power their own blockchain. The Celestia token is the currency you use to pay for electricity.”

The blockchain “decouples” the consensus and application execution layers. It “provides a pluggable consensus layer, allowing developers to deploy their own execution layers to run on top.”

The aim is to:

  • Allow developers to build blockchains easily.
  • Reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining a blockchain. 
  • Offer flexibility so developers can customise applications.
  • Make scaling easier (scaling refers to the ability to increase number of users).
  • Ensure secure interoperability (the ability of different blockchains to communicate and exchange information/assets) for all blockchains on Celestia.
  • Allow protocols to be updated without hard forks.

The project also announced plans for its “Quantum Gravity Bridge project, a Celestia to Ethereum data availability (DA) bridge.” Read more here. 

What stage of development are they in?

Celestia is currently in its testnet phase.

In 2022, the project raised $55M to build its modular blockchain network and its testnet was released. The project plans to launch its mainnet in 2023. 

Will they have a token?

Celestia will have a token to secure its network through Proof of Stake (PoS) and pay for transaction fees. It will also eventually have a fee burn mechanism.