// GLOSSARY -- WEB3 INFRASTRUCTURE

What is Celestia?

1 min read Updated

Celestia is a modular data availability (DA) blockchain that provides affordable, scalable data publication — enabling rollups and app-chains to post data at a fraction of Ethereum's cost.

WHY IT MATTERS

Celestia is the first dedicated DA layer. Instead of doing everything, it does one thing well: ensuring data is available. Rollups post their transaction data to Celestia, achieving data availability at much lower cost than Ethereum.

The technical innovation: Data Availability Sampling (DAS). Light nodes can verify data availability by sampling random portions, rather than downloading everything. This enables scalability without compromising verification.

Celestia enables 'sovereign rollups' — rollups that post data to Celestia but run their own settlement, potentially independent of Ethereum. This creates a new design space for blockchain architectures.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Celestia vs Ethereum for DA?
Celestia is 10-100x cheaper for DA. Ethereum provides stronger security guarantees. The choice depends on the rollup's security requirements and cost sensitivity.
What is DAS?
Data Availability Sampling allows light nodes to verify data is available by randomly sampling portions rather than downloading everything. This scales DA verification to many nodes efficiently.
Does Celestia compete with Ethereum?
It's complementary and competitive. Rollups can use Celestia for cheaper DA while still settling on Ethereum. Or they can use Celestia exclusively for sovereignty. The market is deciding.

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