The modular blockchain, Celestia, has announced the rollout of its mainnet beta, named Lemon Mint. With this launch, Celestia aims to position itself as a “modular data availability network that securely scales with the number of users”.
This new blockchain is a response to the scalability and stability challenges often observed with major blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana. Along with this rollout, 580,000 users have been issued Celestia’s native $TIA token.
Its blog post said the “mainnet launch signifies more than just Celestia going live”.
It continued: “It’s the start of a new era. An era of verifiability where anyone can run a secure light node. An era of collaboration in which blockchains can openly build on top of each other. An era of abundant blockspace that allows any developer to deploy their own blockchain.”
What is Celestia?
Celestia distinguishes itself as the first dedicated modular data blockchain. Modular blockchains aim to address scalability issues by utilising specific channels optimised for speed and execution. In contrast, blockchain giants often face a trade-off between scaling and either decentralisation or security.
In its blog post, Celestia said: “Modular blockchains are designed to solve scalability issues by using specific channels for speed and execution, unlike monolithic blockchains, which can scale only at the expense of decentralization or security.”
Another notable feature of Celestia is its use of data availability sampling (DAS), a method used to verify data on the blockchain. This approach helps increase the data transfer rates.
However, its blog post warned: “Remember that Celestia Mainnet Beta is early and experimental. It introduces ambitious new technologies, and that means uncharted territory. Expect occasional instability or reduced performance at times.”
Staking on Celestia
Prioritising trust minimisation, Celestia allows users to interact without a centralised API. Users can both publish and access data on Celestia by operating a Celestia light node.
With the mainnet beta now live, individuals can contribute to Celestia’s security by staking their TIA tokens with a validator or running a light node.
Celestia’s interoperability
Celestia’s beta has been designed with other projects in mind. The blockchain enables rollups and other modular chains to leverage Celestia as their data availability and consensus layer.
Initially, the blockchain will support 2MB blocks, but there are plans to extend this to 8MB blocks after an on-chain governance review. Looking ahead, Celestia aims to support 1GB blocks to ensure ample data availability for the modular ecosystem.
TIA token launch
Celestia’s token launched alongside mainnet, going live at 14:00 UTC on 31 October. At the time of writing, TIA is trading at $2.18.
Major exchanges announced their plans to list the token the same day as the launch. These include Binance, KuCoin and Bybit.
