State Of Celestia In 2024: $TIA The Gateway To Gains

Today’s newsletter will explore:

• Top airdrops in the Celestia ecosystem

• Celestia’s fundamentals and performance in 2024

1️⃣ Top 4 Celestia Ecosystem Airdrops You Should Be Farming

Staking TIA might be one of the best and easiest ways to farm multiple airdrops. Several tokenless blockchains are using Celestia’s data availability infrastructure, and many of them have hinted at airdrops for early users.

Top 4 airdrops in the Celestia ecosystem are:

1.MilkyWay

MilkyWay is a liquid staking protocol for the Celestia ecosystem.

Airdrop Guide:

• Visit  MilkyWay dashboard

• Connect your Celestia wallet

• Enter the amount of TIA you wish to stake and click on “Stake”

• Staking more TIA earns you more points

Join the MilkyWay airdrop campaign.

2. Caldera

Caldera offers a no-code web3 infrastructure platform, focusing on crafting high-performance, adaptable Layer 2 blockchains. Utilizing Caldera, you can effortlessly deploy a rollup with just one click.

Airdrop guide:

• Visit the Caldera website 

• Register using your email

• Connect GETH to the Caldera chain

• Participate in Caldera Public Testnet tasks

Join the Caldera airdrop campaign.

3. Eclipse

Eclipse is a flexible rollup provider compatible with various layer-1 blockchains. It secured $15 million in funding from prominent investors like Polychain and Polygon.

Airdrop guide:

• Visit the Eclipse website

• Sign up for the testnet with your email

• Testnet is currently available only for developers

Join the Eclipse airdrop campaign.

4. Stride

Stride is a Cosmos-based liquid staking platform. Stride has introduced support for Celestia staking and confirmed an airdrop for early TIA stakers.

Airdrop guide:

• Connect your wallet with the Stride application, 

• Click "Stake" and proceed to stake your preferred quantity of TIA. 

• Validate the transactions, which include an IBC transfer to the Stride Network. 

• Add Stride network to your wallet to monitor the balance.

Join the Stride airdrop campaign.

2️⃣ State Of Celestia In 2024

Celestia (TIA) has been garnering attention in the crypto sphere, surging from an all-time low of $2.20 to a peak of $20 within a mere two months of its launch. Although relatively new, Celestia is by far the most innovative approach to blockchain design, and with this comes massive potential.

The Celestia ecosystem is still nascent, but with all the hype surrounding it, Celestia is already positioned to take 2024 by storm. This piece will delve into the state of Celestia and its prospects.

What Is Celestia? 

Celestia is a modular data availability network that securely scales with the number of users, making it easy for anyone to launch their blockchain. Celestia addresses some of the limitations faced by traditional monolithic blockchain architectures. 

Blockchains comprise three separate layers bundled together in the same network. This monolithic design introduces many limitations, especially scalability challenges. Modular blockchains separate the layers, optimizing for one particular function.

Celestia is a data availability(DA) modular network. DA refers to the assurance that the data necessary to validate the blockchain's state is available to all participants. This is vital because, in a decentralized system, participants must be able to verify the blockchain's integrity independently.

Celestia incorporates a standout feature with its data availability sampling(DAS) technology. DAS enables users to confirm the availability of extensive data blocks without downloading the entire block. This streamlined approach enhances user experience and efficiency significantly. 

Celestia’s modular network is designed to scale with increasing users, providing a solution to the scalability challenges that most blockchains face. Celestia is built using the Cosmos SDK, a feature that makes it interoperable with other blockchains in the Cosmos Hub. 

Celestia Tokenomics

Celestia's native token, TIA, serves four primary purposes:

• Rollups utilize TIA to pay for blockspace (analogous to storage space) when publishing data on the network

• TIA functions as a gas token for rollups, eliminating the need for developers to establish their tokenomics

• Users stake TIA to enhance network security and participate in consensus.

• TIA empowers the community to engage in decentralized governance.

TIA has a maximum supply of 1.02 billion tokens. Only 163 million TIA are in circulation, representing about 10% of the total.

TIA token distribution is as follows:

• Public Allocation - 20% 

• R&D & Ecosystem - 26.8%)

• Early Backers: Series A&B - 19.7%

• Early Backers: Seed - 15.9%

• Initial Core Contributors - 17.6%

Out of the vested tokens, 8% will be unlocked in the first year, decreasing 10% per year until it reaches an inflation floor of 1.5% annually.

State Of Celestia In 2024

Celestia (TIA) has exhibited consistent growth since its mainnet release, with TIA price surging by approximately 680% over the past 90 days, reaching $19.52. Alongside the price, market capitalization has grown exponentially, reaching over $3 billion and positioning Celestia as the 35th largest blockchain.

Celestia’s user base has rapidly grown. The blockchain boasts over 900k user accounts, 200k of those being added in less than a month. The number of transactions has also risen significantly. So far, Celestia has processed over 11 million transactions. Currently, the network has more than 20,000 active wallets, collectively processing just under 2 million transactions in the last 30 days.

As of January 2024, a minimum of 236K distinct addresses had engaged in staking TIA tokens. This figure steadily rises, suggesting heightened interest in the blockchain and a burgeoning community of TIA stakers.

What’s Behind Celestia’s Success?

Unlike other established blockchains, there’s still no consumer-facing Dapp with millions of daily users to generate native value for Celestia. Celestia's ecosystem is still in the early stages, so its success is mostly driven by speculations about its future adoption due to its unique value proposition. 

In a landscape where developers strive to tackle the blockchain trilemma, Celestia stands out by simultaneously achieving decentralization, security, and scalability. 

The flexibility to define execution and settlement environments has attracted many promising projects to build on Celestia. 

Furthermore, it’s cheaper to use Celestia’s DA network compared to Ethereum, and this will lower rollup fees while also maintaining scalability. Both developers and investors realize Celestia’s potential, raising the demand for the token. 

Aside from its fundamentals, airdrop farming has also contributed to Celestia’s success. Many tokenless projects are building on the network, and staking TIA is one of the strategies for receiving multiple airdrops. Crypto Twitter is currently at rage with Celestia-based airdrop opportunities. This has led to increased buying pressure as airdrop farmers rush to stake TIA.

Celestia Ecosystem Rundown

Celestia has experienced rapid growth, with over 85 protocols now integrated into its ecosystem. Apart from its native protocols, others like Manta Network, Alpha Dune, and Kinto have transitioned to using Celestia's DA. Some of the most notable Celestia ecosystem projects and their funding are:

1.DeFi

• Catalyst AMM: A protocol facilitating interoperability among numerous chains → $4.2M

• Duality: Creating efficient and incentivized markets → Amount undisclosed 

• Osmosis: The leading DEX on Cosmos → $21M  

2. Rollups

• RollkitDev: Develop rollups using interchangeable software for enhanced sovereignty → Amount undisclosed

• Alt Layer: A decentralized protocol enabling developers to deploy application-specific rollups → $7.2M 

• Sovereign Labs: Scalable and interoperable rollups suitable for any blockchain → $7.4M 

• Eclipse: A customizable rollup provider compatible with multiple blockchains → $15M

3. Cross-Chain

• Polymer Labs: Enhances IBC interoperability across diverse blockchains → $3.6M 

• Axelar Network: Provides a comprehensive interoperability for advanced connectivity → $35M 

• Hyperlane: A permissionless interoperability layer for a modular future → $18.5M 

• Skip Protocol: Transforms sovereign protocols with MEV and UX infrastructure → $6.5M

4. Settlement Layers

• Berachain: A Cosmos SDK-based L1 equivalent to EVM, utilizing Proof of Liquidity → $42M 

• Dymension: Empowers the Internet of RollApps → $6.7M 

• Neutron: Cross-chain CosmWasm Platform → $10M 

• Saga: Provides an Integrated stack of advanced tools and support to web3 visionaries → $5M

5. Infrastructure

• Manta Network: A Modular L2 featuring ZK-as-a-Service → $28.8M 

• Noble: A specialized generic asset issuance chain for the Inter-Blockchain Communication ecosystem → $3.3M 

• Modular Cloud: Celestia's premier block explorer, empowering rollups and protocols to thrive → $1.7M

Celestia In 2024 And Beyond: Bullish Or Bearish?

Rollup infrastructure is evolving, with modular blockchains emerging as the primary trend in future development. As the first mover in the modular category, Celestia is poised to play a significant role in the modular era. Many roll-ups are already tapping into Celestia’s DA layer. Since Celestia lacks an execution environment of its own, the network's success will depend on how well these roll-ups attract users.

Initially, doubts surrounded Celestia's business model, questioning its divergence from Ethereum's Layer 2 framework. However, Celestia's increasing adoption by rollups has demonstrated its viability. Celestia will have to battle it out with Ethereum after the upcoming protodanksharding upgrade(EIP-4844). EIP-4844 will make it cheaper for rollups to post transaction data on the Ethereum mainnet. 

Even with ERC-4844 in place, Celestia will still offer rollups, lower fees for data availability, and a higher scalability capacity. In the future, upcoming modular networks like Avail will heighten the competition, but Celestia will still enjoy the first-mover advantage.

One concern about TIA’s future performance is the huge percentage of vested tokens. 33% of tokens held by Series A and B investors will be unlocked in the first year. Token unlocks can exert downward pressure on prices if they or they spark negative sentiment and initiate huge selling pressure. Year 1 would likely be critical to monitor, considering the potential sell pressure typically linked to token unlocks.

From where we stand, Celestia has all the technical pointers it needs to stand out as the blockchain of choice for 2024 and beyond.