Does Celestia possess a competitive advantage in terms of performance? Comprehending these indicators and concepts is crucial for becoming a discerning investor capable of cognitive investment.
Today, the modular blockchain Celestia has announced a momentous revelation: the upcoming release of its native token, TIA, along with the commencement of the Genesis Drop, a grandiose airdrop initiative. This unprecedented event will encompass a vast array of individuals, including developers, contributors to ecosystem projects, regular users, and even validators, spanning across 7,579 recipients and 576,653 on-chain addresses on Ethereum Rollups, Cosmos Hub, and Osmosis. The reverberating effect of this proclamation is sure to ignite anticipation and excitement throughout the entire blockchain community.
However, at the same time, many people may still be unfamiliar with the concept of modular blockchain. Unlike more well-known concepts like Layer 2, modular blockchain is a architecture and design approach for blockchain. It delegates different functional layers of the blockchain, such as the consensus layer, data availability layer (DA), settlement layer, and transaction execution layer, to be handled by separate chains instead of one chain processing all modules. This design philosophy aims to enhance the efficiency and performance of the blockchain.
The Rollup technology of Ethereum is an exemplification of this modular design, where it achieves modularity in the execution layer of transactions. However, due to the accumulated historical data and various limiting factors, Ethereum’s progress in modularity has been somewhat constrained. The emergence of Celestia, on the other hand, may embark on a new chapter for modular blockchain, offering new possibilities and opportunities for the advancement of blockchain technology.
In the subsequent portion of this text, we shall delve into the distinctive aspects of modular chains and how Celestia emerges as the pioneer of modular blockchain. Furthermore, we shall undertake crucial comparative analysis to aid readers in obtaining a comprehensive comprehension of the distinguishing characteristics and advantages of Celestia in comparison to other related platforms.
Before delving into understanding modularized public chains, let’s take a moment to review the fundamental concepts of blockchain technology.
Before delving into the distinctions of modular chains, it is imperative to comprehend the fundamental capabilities of blockchain. In essence, blockchain manifests as an instantiated replicated state machine, where a deterministic sequence of transactions is applied to an initial state across nodes within a decentralized network, culminating in a collectively shared ultimate state. This entails that blockchain necessitates the following four functionalities:
1. It is crucial to carry out transactions that update the state correctly. Therefore, the execution process must ensure that only valid transactions are executed, specifically those that lead to valid state machine transitions.
2. Settlement necessitates an execution layer that verifies evidence, resolves fraudulent disputes, and serves as a bridge between other execution layers.
3. Consensus requires reaching agreement on transaction order.
4. Data availability (DA) ensures that transaction data is accessible. Please note that execution, settlement, and consensus all require DA.
The modular chain in itself functions as a blockchain with its own network nodes. However, unlike a monolithic chain, these nodes are specialized in handling specific tasks. For instance, some nodes solely focus on distributed applications (DApps), while others concentrate solely on transaction execution or network consensus.
As depicted above, the modular chain is categorized based on its diverse functionalities. It enables distinct chains to concentrate on various tasks, thereby facilitating enhanced efficiency and performance.
Currently, there are several projects in the domain of modular blockchain that focus on providing the data availability layer, such as Celestia, LazyLedger, and DataShards. Additionally, there are projects dedicated to offering the execution layer, such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and zkSync3. Furthermore, there are initiatives that concentrate on cross-chain bridging and protocol aggregation, such as Polygon, Connext, and the Hop Protocol.
By implementing modular chains, not only does it enhance the overall efficiency and performance of the blockchain, but it also grants greater flexibility and potential for diverse projects and teams, thus propelling further development and innovation within the realm of blockchain technology.
Please provide the sentence you would like me to translate.
The concept of modular blockchain originated from two important whitepapers in 2018 and 2019. The first paper, titled “Data Availability Sampling and Fraud Proofs,” was co-authored by Mustafa Albasan, the co-founder of Celestia, and Vitalik. This paper elaborated on how to build a scalable blockchain that can expand with the increasing number of nodes in the network, thus addressing the scalability issue. Following this, Albasan further expanded on the concept of data availability and proposed a new idea of constructing a blockchain solely responsible for data availability without executing any transactions in another paper titled “Lazy Ledger,” which is referred to as “client-side smart contracts.”
Furthermore, Ethereum also shifted its development roadmap to mimic the approach being taken by Celestia. Initially, they were building ETH 2.0, which focuses on sharding technology. However, by the end of 2020, they decided to shift and follow Celestia’s approach, gradually aligning their architecture more closely with Celestia’s model.
Celestia stands at the forefront of this innovation as a chain that focuses on data availability. It incentivizes nodes to provide data availability for other chains or rollups through token rewards and penalties for node behavior. This approach is regarded as one of the most significant underlying innovations in the blockchain industry since Ethereum. Whether it is Ethereum or Celestia, both are building a secure foundational layer.
The two main functionalities of the Celestia data availability (DA) layer are Data Availability Sampling (DAS) and Namespace Merkle Tree (NMT). These functionalities are novel solutions for blockchain scalability. DAS enables lightweight nodes to verify data availability without downloading the entire block, while NMT allows the execution and settlement layers on Celestia to download only the transactions relevant to them.
The concept of Data Availability (DA) fundamentally involves lightweight nodes that do not participate in consensus, thus eliminating the need for storing all data and maintaining real-time network-wide status. The two mainstream approaches for validating data are currently Data Availability Sampling (DAS) and the Data Availability Committee (DAC). DAS verifies whether a block has been published by downloading a random selection of blocks, while DAC confirms the reception of data by signing each update of the network’s state with its designated members.
In an interview, Celestia clearly expressed that DAS is more trustworthy compared to DAC. When an independent data availability layer functions as a public chain, it surpasses a committee formed by subjective individuals. If enough committee members’ private keys are compromised, leading to unavailability of off-chain data availability, the security of users’ funds and data will be greatly compromised. Celestia’s current focus is to decentralize the data availability layer by providing an independent DA public chain, equipped with a set of validating nodes, block producers, and consensus mechanisms to enhance the security level.
By accessing more data availability, Rollup can achieve higher throughput. Ethereum, Celestia, EigenLayer, and Avail are all aiming to provide scalable data availability for Rollup. Now let us compare these four solutions based on five indicators: block time, finality, data availability adoption, lightweight nodes, and cryptographic proof schemes.
Upon comparing the four major solutions across five criteria, it becomes evident that Celestia holds a relative advantage.
1. Block Generation Time:
Celestia, Ethereum, and Avail exhibit similar block generation times, with Ethereum taking 12 seconds, Celestia taking 15 seconds, and Avail taking 20 seconds.
2. Finality Consensus Algorithm:
Ethereum: Employs a combination of GHOST and Casper protocols for finality consensus, with a finality time of approximately 12–15 minutes.
EigenLayer: As a collective of smart contracts living on Ethereum, it inherits Ethereum’s finality time.
Celestia: Utilizes the Tendermint consensus protocol, offering single-slot finality, meaning once a block is confirmed through consensus, it is considered final, aligning closely with the block time of 15 seconds.
Avail: Implements the BABE and GRANDPA protocol combination, with a best-case finality time of 20 seconds.
3. Data Availability Sampling:
Celestia and Avail: Both will support data availability sampling light nodes upon release.
Ethereum: Does not include data availability sampling.
EigenLayer: Although currently without official plans, it may potentially support data availability sampling in the future.
4. Light Node Security:
Celestia and Avail: Since both incorporate data availability sampling, their light nodes achieve the minimum trust security level.
Ethereum and EigenLayer: Without data availability sampling, their light clients do not possess the minimum trust security level.
5. Encoding Proof Schemes:
Ethereum, EigenLayer, and Avail: All three projects employ a validity proof scheme to ensure correct block encoding.
Celestia: Utilizes a fraud proof scheme to detect incorrectly encoded blocks.
In summary, among these four projects, Celestia demonstrates its unique advantages. Its near-instant finality time in line with block time enables faster transaction confirmation, enhancing efficiency and user experience. Additionally, Celestia enhances light node security and block encoding detection by utilizing data availability sampling and fraud proof schemes, which contribute to overall network security and stability.
