Original author: Haotian
Editor's note: Celestia is one of the pioneers of modular public chains. Celestia takes an unconventional approach and launches Blobstream for the Ethereum ecosystem to continuously penetrate Ethereum. Combined with Ethereum Layer2 OP Stack, it has launched a one-click chain launch. With this, Celestia has almost conquered the city and continued to invade the territory of Ethereum layer2.
How should we understand @CelestiaOrg's threat to Ethereum? Will it really be the killer of Ethereum? In my opinion, Celestia's invasion war will continue in the Layer2 field, but the result of this war is not a life-and-death struggle, but a "win-win" situation. In essence, this is the inevitable result of the high modularization of the Layer2 market. Why? Next, let me tell you my opinion.
If we disassemble the Ethereum blockchain system, we will find that its core consists of two parts:
1) Data Avaliability, data availability;
2) interoperability.
As for other EVM execution layers and POS consensus layers, although they are also important, when talking about Rollup layer2, we pay more attention to DA and interoperability.
DA corresponds to the verification capability of Ethereum's Validators. If Ethereum participates in DA, the state transition process submitted by layer2 can be verified by the main network Validators to ensure security. If Ethereum DA is separated, the main network calldata and Blob blocks become the state transition bulletin board of layer2, and the validity is determined by the third-party DA consensus. Even if a premeditated "bad debt" is submitted to the main network, the main network cannot make a judgment or intervene.
Interoperability refers to the communication and interaction capabilities between Ethereum and other chains, which mainly involves the security of asset settlement communication between chains and effective solutions for common liquidity. Currently, there are mainly Restaking projects such as @eigenlayer and some middle layer projects for liquidity management.
In addition to consolidating Ethereum’s position as an asset settlement layer, this type of liquidity management solution can not only release Ethereum’s overloaded consensus to a multi-chain environment, but more importantly, it can also export Ethereum Validators’ secure consensus capabilities to other chains, opening up new territory for the Ethereum DeFi brand foundation.
Celestia is one of the pioneers of modular public chains. Logically, it should take the Cosmos IBC-related public chains as its main target. After all, most chains based on Cosmos IBC focus on lightweightness, and the choice of building the DA layer based on Celestia is a perfect fit.
However, Celestia did not follow the usual path. It launched Blobstream for the Ethereum ecosystem as an "external threat" to continuously infiltrate Ethereum. Combined with the "internal trouble" of one-click chain launch caused by Ethereum layer2 OP Stack, Celestia almost conquered the city and continued to invade the territory of Ethereum layer2.
As a Layer2 developer, what lies ahead is nothing more than a tradeoff between DA legitimacy and the cost of launching a chain.
DA's legitimacy is relatively passive in the commercial market. It is suitable for some comprehensive layer2 projects that are more concerned about security consensus issues and have a certain brand heritage and market foundation. Some emerging small layer2s, especially those based on OP Stack's one-click chain launch and quick layer2 chains, will try their best to squeeze costs to the lowest level.
Therefore, third-party DAs such as Celesitia are naturally a better choice. Although EigenDA also provides Ethereum DA services, it cannot reduce the actual cost of developing layer2 for the project.
For developers who choose to take shortcuts to operate and maintain Layer2, cost will inevitably be the first consideration. The biggest cost of Layer2 is Ethereum's DA cost. Choosing a third-party DA at low cost to hedge the market revenue pressure of early operations may be the preferred choice of most small developers at the tail end.
Therefore, whether Celestia will endanger Ethereum depends on the future development of Ethereum Layer2. If Layer2 will gradually narrow down to the comprehensive Layer2 led by the four kings, then DA legitimacy will be the main theme. If Layer2 will develop into a trend with various Layer2 solutions emerging like mushrooms after rain, then cost considerations will always be the hard truth.
Although there is still a variable of Cancun upgrade, the trend of Ethereum Layer2 is already very obvious, and there will definitely be a large number of Layer2 solutions emerging. The reason is not difficult to understand:
The development of the four major chains, Arbitrum, Optimism, Starkent, and zkSync, has not met expectations. There are issues with Sequencer decentralization, the 7-day challenge has not been implemented, there are issues with hardware acceleration of the Prover system, EVM competiable equivalence, cross-chain asset escape hatches, the Token economic model cannot empower governance tokens, and the native DeFi development is difficult, etc.
It is no exaggeration to say that the development of Layer2 has left behind a lot of problems. Any of these problems, combined with the Stack framework and Celestia DA, may become a powerful development direction with capital narrative imagination space.
I have also said in previous articles that the chaos of Layer2 will really begin after the Cancun upgrade, and the Layer2 market will move towards "diversified" prosperity. Moreover, OP Stack and ZK Stack are still building a more open and inclusive layer3 application chain era. By then, the framework of traditional Ethereum Layer2 will be more vague, and three-party DAs such as Celestia will become modular DA layers and become rigid needs.
This is an inevitable result of the Layer2 track’s trend towards commercial expansion, and it is also the fundamental reason why Celestia is still obsessed with the Ethereum Layer2 ecosystem.
However, this is not just a threat to Ethereum. When more and more layer2 adopts third-party DA solutions such as Celestia, Celestia's market position will be highlighted, which will also promote changes in Ethereum Layer2:
1) Comprehensive Layer2 platforms will become the foundation, and liquidity, user volume, application ecology, etc. will occupy the commanding heights of the brand. DA orthodoxy will become the core difference to ensure their solid position;
2) Personalized new Layer2 platforms will become extensions, and their innovation, diverse gameplay, market expectations and opportunities will attract groups of people to explore and dig for gold. Flexibility and freedom are their trump cards.
Based on this idea, Ethereum's core layer2 will become increasingly stable, and the position of Ethereum DA will not be shaken. As for some more flexible Layer2 or Layer3, although DA is not on Ethereum, don't forget that as long as they are built on Ethereum based on the Stack, it will be difficult for them to escape the control of Interoperablity.
At that time, Ethereum, as the asset settlement layer and source of liquidity, will form softer liquidity control over these flexible layer2s.
If you don’t understand what I mean, just look at the fact that Celestia, whose price has skyrocketed, has very few transactions running on it. While invading Ethereum, Celestia will gradually lose its “comprehensive chain” attribute (it wasn’t originally), and become a modular DA layer of the Ethereum ecosystem. So what if so many Ethereum Layer2s use Celestia’s DA? As long as the Stack and Rollup frameworks remain unchanged, these Layer2s will have to continue to “pay taxes” to Ethereum.
Compared with the lost legitimacy of DA, the rise of diversified prosperous Layer2 and Layer3 markets, Ethereum will always be the biggest beneficiary.
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