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Celestia mainnetCelestia—Celestia mainnetCelestia—

Celestia mainnet

by CelestiaLI

ScalingStage 5 of 5

Live since 2023; growing block sizes with each upgrade.

Updated 20 Feb 2026Checked 25 Sep0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Larger blocks and higher throughput
  1. LazyLedger paper publishedMay 2019Complete.
  2. Mainnet beta and TIA launch31 Oct 2023Complete.
  3. Ginger upgrade: 6-second blocksDec 2024Complete.
  4. Larger blocks and higher throughputNowCurrent milestone.

Most important updates

  • 20 Feb 2026
  • 13 Jan 2026
  • 9 Sep 2025
  • 14 Apr 2025
  • 31 Oct 2023

Current obstacles

  • Demand vs capacityFees depend on rollup demand, and Ethereum's growing blob space competes for the same customers.

Physics limits

  • Sampling needs enough samplersEach light node checks only a few cells. The guarantee holds only if enough nodes sample to cover the block together; bigger blocks need more samplers or more samples each.
  • Someone must still move every byteBlock producers and full nodes receive all the data. At 128 MB per 6-second block that is ~170 Mbit/s nonstop, which limits who can run them.
  • Published is not stored foreverData availability means the data was released, not kept. Nodes only have to hold it for a limited window, so long-term history needs separate archives.

How it works

4 parts
A Raspberry Pi in a desktop case: small computers like this can run a Celestia light node that samples random pieces of each block
A Raspberry Pi in a desktop case: small computers like this can run a Celestia light node that samples random pieces of each blockPhoto: Sven.petersen · CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
Blobs

A chain that only stores data

Celestia doesn't run apps. Rollups post raw data (blobs) and pay fees in TIA, then do their computing elsewhere.

Data square

Blocks as a coded grid

Each block is laid out as a square and extended with error-correcting codes to twice its width and height, so a quarter of it can rebuild the rest.

Sampling

Light nodes check random cells

A light node downloads a few dozen random cells with proofs. If all arrive, it's very likely the whole block was published.

Fraud proofs

Bad coding gets caught

If a block producer encodes a row wrongly, full nodes publish a short proof of it, so light nodes reject the block.

Update log

6 updates

Fri 20 Feb

  • Minor: BlogSoftware

Tue 13 Jan

  • Major: BlogResearch

Tue 9 Sep 2025

  • Major: BlogSoftware

Mon 14 Apr 2025

  • Minor: BlogTest

Thu 24 Oct 2024

  • Minor: BlogSoftware

Tue 31 Oct 2023

  • Major: BlogSoftware

About Celestia

The team behind Celestia mainnet

Celestia

Data availability layer, sampling, TIA

A blockchain that only orders transactions and stores their data, leaving the computing to rollups. It was first to let light nodes check data by sampling random pieces in production. Built by Celestia Labs, first called LazyLedger.

  • Mainnet beta launched 31 Oct 2023, the first live network with sampling light nodes.
  • Data is coded with backup pieces and tagged by app, so each rollup downloads only its own data.
  • Upgrades since 2024 made blocks faster and bigger.

celestia.org (opens celestia.org)Company profile →

Founded
20197 yrs
Headquarters
Liechtenstein
Status
Private
Valuation
private
Works in
CryptoData & restaking
Coverage
1 program · 7 updateslatest 20 Feb 2026checked 25 Sep
People
Mustafa Al-Bassam (opens en.wikipedia.org)Co-founder
Primer