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Modular Blockchain Wars: Celestia vs EigenDA vs Avail and the Rollup Economics Breakdown

· 9 min read
Dora Noda
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

Data availability is the new battleground for blockchain dominance—and the stakes have never been higher. As Layer 2 TVL climbs past $47 billion and rollup transactions eclipse Ethereum mainnet by a factor of four, the question of where to store transaction data has become the most consequential infrastructure decision in crypto.

Three protocols are racing to become the backbone of the modular blockchain era: Celestia, the pioneer that proved the concept; EigenDA, the Ethereum-aligned challenger leveraging $19 billion in restaked assets; and Avail, the universal DA layer aiming to connect every ecosystem. The winner won't just capture fees—they'll define how the next generation of blockchains are built.

The Economics That Started a War​

Here's the brutal math that launched the modular blockchain movement: posting data to Ethereum costs approximately $100 per megabyte. Even with the introduction of EIP-4844's blobs, that figure only dropped to $20.56 per MB—still prohibitively expensive for high-throughput applications.

Enter Celestia, with data availability at roughly $0.81 per MB. That's a 99% cost reduction that fundamentally changed what's economically viable on-chain.

For rollups, data availability isn't a nice-to-have—it's their largest variable cost. Every transaction a rollup processes must be posted somewhere for verification. When that somewhere charges a 100x premium, the entire business model suffers. Rollups must either:

  1. Pass costs to users (killing adoption)
  2. Subsidize costs indefinitely (killing sustainability)
  3. Find cheaper DA (killing nothing)

By 2025, the market has spoken decisively: over 80% of Layer 2 activity now relies on dedicated DA layers rather than Ethereum's base layer.

Celestia: The First-Mover Advantage​

Celestia was built from scratch for a single purpose: being a plug-and-play consensus and data layer. It doesn't support smart contracts or dApps. Instead, it offers blobspace—the ability for protocols to publish large chunks of data without executing any logic.

The technical innovation that makes this work is Data Availability Sampling (DAS). Rather than requiring every node to download every block, DAS allows lightweight nodes to confirm data availability by randomly sampling tiny pieces. This seemingly simple change unlocks massive scalability without sacrificing decentralization.

By the Numbers (2025)​

Celestia's ecosystem has exploded:

  • 56+ rollups deployed (37 mainnet, 19 testnet)
  • 160+ gigabytes of blob data processed to date
  • Eclipse alone has posted over 83 GB through the network
  • 128 MB blocks enabled after the November 2025 Matcha upgrade
  • 21.33 MB/s throughput achieved in testnet conditions (16x mainnet capacity)

The network's namespace activity hit an all-time high on December 26, 2025—ironically, while TIA experienced a 90% yearly price decline. Usage and token price have decoupled spectacularly, raising questions about value capture in pure DA protocols.

Finality characteristics: Celestia creates blocks every 6 seconds with Tendermint consensus. However, because it uses fraud proofs rather than validity proofs, true DA finality requires a ~10 minute challenge period.

Decentralization trade-offs: With 100 validators and a Nakamoto Coefficient of 6, Celestia offers meaningful decentralization but remains susceptible to validator centralization risks inherent to delegated proof-of-stake systems.

EigenDA: The Ethereum Alignment Play​

EigenDA takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than building a new blockchain, it leverages Ethereum's existing security through restaking. Validators who stake ETH on Ethereum can "restake" it to secure additional services—including data availability.

This design offers two killer features:

Economic security at scale: EigenDA is backed by $335+ million in restaked assets specifically allocated to DA services, drawing from EigenLayer's $19 billion+ TVL pool. No new trust assumptions, no new token to secure.

Raw throughput: EigenDA claims 100 MB/s on mainnet—achievable because it separates data dispersal from consensus. While Celestia processes at roughly 1.33 MB/s live (8 MB blocks / 6 seconds), EigenDA can move data an order of magnitude faster.

Adoption Momentum​

Major rollups have committed to EigenDA:

  • Mantle Network: Upgraded from MantleDA (10 operators) to EigenDA (200+ operators), reporting up to 80% cost reduction
  • Celo: Leveraging EigenDA for their L2 transition
  • ZKsync Elastic Network: Designated EigenDA as preferred alternative DA solution for its customizable rollup ecosystem

The operator network now exceeds 200 nodes with over 40,000 individual restakers delegating ETH.

The centralization critique: Unlike Celestia and Avail, EigenDA operates as a Data Availability Committee rather than a publicly verified blockchain. End users cannot independently verify data availability—they rely on economic guarantees and slashing risks. For applications where pure decentralization matters more than throughput, this is a meaningful trade-off.

Finality characteristics: EigenDA inherits Ethereum's finality timeline—between 12 and 15 minutes, significantly longer than Celestia's native 6-second blocks.

Avail: The Universal Connector​

Avail emerged from Polygon but was designed from day one to be chain-agnostic. While Celestia and EigenDA focus primarily on Ethereum ecosystem rollups, Avail positions itself as the universal DA layer connecting every major blockchain.

The technical differentiator is how Avail implements data availability sampling. While Celestia relies on fraud proofs (requiring a challenge period for full security), Avail combines validity proofs with DAS through KZG commitments. This provides faster cryptographic guarantees of data availability.

2025 Milestones​

Avail's year has been marked by aggressive expansion:

  • 70+ partnerships secured including major L2 players
  • Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, StarkWare, and zkSync announced integrations following mainnet launch
  • 10+ rollups currently in production
  • $75 million raised including $45M Series A from Founders Fund, Dragonfly Capital, and Cyber Capital
  • Avail Nexus launched November 2025, enabling cross-chain coordination across 11+ ecosystems

The Nexus upgrade is particularly significant. It introduced a ZK-powered cross-chain coordination layer that lets applications interact with assets across Ethereum, Solana (coming soon), TRON, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and BNB without manual bridging.

The Infinity Blocks roadmap targets 10 GB block capacity—an order of magnitude beyond any current competitor.

Current constraints: Avail's mainnet runs at 4 MB per 20-second block (0.2 MB/s), the lowest throughput of the three major DA layers. However, testing has proven capability for 128 MB blocks, suggesting significant headroom for growth.

The Rollup Economics Breakdown​

For rollup operators, choosing a DA layer is one of the most consequential decisions they'll make. Here's how the math works:

Cost Comparison (Per MB, 2025)​

DA SolutionCost per MBNotes
Ethereum L1 (calldata)~$100Legacy approach
Ethereum Blobs (EIP-4844)~$20.56Post-Pectra with 6 blob target
Celestia~$0.81PayForBlob model
EigenDATieredReserved bandwidth pricing
AvailFormula-basedBase + length + weight

Throughput Comparison​

DA SolutionLive ThroughputTheoretical Max
EigenDA15 MB/s (claimed 100 MB/s)100 MB/s
Celestia~1.33 MB/s21.33 MB/s (tested)
Avail~0.2 MB/s128 MB blocks (tested)

Finality Characteristics​

DA SolutionBlock TimeEffective Finality
Celestia6 seconds~10 minutes (fraud proof window)
EigenDAN/A (uses Ethereum)12-15 minutes
Avail20 secondsFaster (validity proofs)

Trust Model​

DA SolutionVerificationTrust Assumption
CelestiaPublic DAS1-of-N honest light node
EigenDADACEconomic (slashing risk)
AvailPublic DAS + KZGCryptographic validity

Security Considerations: The DA-Saturation Attack​

Recent research has identified a new vulnerability class specific to modular rollups: DA-saturation attacks. When DA costs are externally priced (by the parent L1) but locally consumed (by the L2), malicious actors can saturate a rollup's DA capacity at artificially low cost.

This decoupling of pricing and consumption is intrinsic to the modular architecture and opens attack vectors absent from monolithic chains. Rollups using alternative DA layers should implement:

  • Independent capacity pricing mechanisms
  • Rate limiting for suspicious data patterns
  • Economic reserves for DA spikes

Strategic Implications: Who Wins?​

The DA wars aren't winner-take-all—at least not yet. Each protocol has carved out distinct positioning:

Celestia wins if you value:

  • Proven production track record (50+ rollups)
  • Deep ecosystem integration (OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK)
  • Transparent per-blob pricing
  • Strong developer tooling

EigenDA wins if you value:

  • Maximum throughput (100 MB/s)
  • Ethereum security alignment via restaking
  • Predictable capacity-based pricing
  • Institutional-grade economic guarantees

Avail wins if you value:

  • Cross-chain universality (11+ ecosystems)
  • Validity proof-based DA verification
  • Long-term throughput roadmap (10 GB blocks)
  • Chain-agnostic architecture

The Road Ahead​

By 2026, the DA layer landscape will look dramatically different:

Celestia is targeting 1 GB blocks with its continued network upgrades. The inflation reduction from Matcha (2.5%) and Lotus (33% lower issuance) suggests a long-term play for sustainable economics.

EigenDA benefits from EigenLayer's growing restaking economy. The proposed Incentives Committee and fee-sharing model could create powerful flywheel effects for EIGEN holders.

Avail aims for 10 GB blocks with Infinity Blocks, potentially leapfrogging competitors on pure capacity while maintaining its cross-chain positioning.

The meta-trend is clear: DA capacity is becoming abundant, competition is driving costs toward zero, and the real value capture may shift from charging for blobspace to controlling the coordination layer that routes data between chains.

For rollup builders, the takeaway is straightforward: DA costs are no longer a meaningful constraint on what you can build. The modular blockchain thesis has won. Now it's just a question of which modular stack captures the most value.

References​

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