Celestium design: Starknet L3 with Celestia DA, cost components and trade-offs
Thread651 words
Explores an L3 rollup on Starknet with DA on Celestia. Settlement on Starknet cuts proof verification costs, while main costs are verification, Celestia DA and bridging attestations. Suits gaming and perps but lacks a native bridge.
Key claims
About 90% of rollup transaction cost is DA (calldata on Ethereum)
Main costs: proof verification on Starknet, posting data to Celestia, bridging DA attestation
Lack of a native bridge may deter liquidity-sensitive DeFi
Celestia mainnet is live now, enabling highly scalable, modular network configurations!
🚀 Use Case Optimization
🚀 High Throughput/Performance
🚀 Strong Security Guarantees
🚀 Interoperability & Liquidity Access
zkEVM L3 on Starknet with DA on Celestia? 🧱✨
🧵 Why not?
Why use Celestia for DA? 🤔
Celestia's modular DA layer is highly scalable and optimized on providing cheap block space to rollups.
As rollup transaction cost is composed of around 90% DA cost (calldata on Ethereum), this allows for a significant UX improvement.
I have covered this in-depth in my recent research report on data availability (DA) with @Castle__Cap.
Check it out here (incl. TLDR thread)! 👇
x.com/Castle__Cap/status/1717526579109339596
It also enables the data throughput that is required to enable parallelized high performance VMs like the Solana Sealevel VM or a MoveVM on L2 or L3 and still inheriting the security guarantees of Ethereum.
So why opt for a validity rollup on top of Starknet? 🤔
Being able to verify the validity proof within a zk-friendly CairoVM on L2 (which is already significantly cheaper than L1), the rollup can abstract a large part of settlement (proof verification fees).
All while through recursive verification on L1, Ethereum remains the final security & consensus layer.
Basically any generalized L2 that is able to support proof verification could be used for settlement here. This includes:
🔹 zkSync
🔹 Polygon zkEVM
🔹 Taiko
🔹 Scroll
🔹 Arbitrum
🔹 Optimism
However, some of these projects are primarily focused on L2s, either by building out ecosystems of interoperable L2s (Optimism & Polygon) instead of L3s.
L2s have the benefit of being more strongly tied to L1 security and having a native bridge to L1 (liquidity & user hub).
Projects like Starknet, Arbitrum, Taiko or zkSync though, are very much focused on a vision of scaling, where application-specific rollups on L3 enable the throughput and customizability that these use cases need.
When choosing a settlement (or proof verification) layer, some of the considerations the project should make are:
🔹 Liquidity Aggregation
🔹 Cost of Proof Verification
🔹 User Adoption
🔹 Market Perception
The main cost components of the Celestium introduced in the first post (visualization), include:
🔹 Proof Verification / Settlement Cost on Starknet
🔹 Posting Data to Celestia (Paying for DA)
🔹 Bridging DA Attestation to Ethereum
In this fully modular configuration, the tech stack is optimized for the requirements of a highly cost-sensitive use case such as a gaming application or a Perp DEX (high frequency trading).
However, the lack of a native bridge might be a deterrent for liquidity-sensitive DeFi use cases.
With improving interop technology in the form of GMPs such as @axelarnetwork, @wormholecrypto or @LayerZero_Labs and advances in zk based bridging tech, this should become an increasingly addressable issue though.
The choice of prover used should be considered in the context of the settlement layer decision and as a way to optimize for proof verification cost.
In the context of proof verification on Starknet, using Starkware's STARK proof system probably makes sense.
Another popular proving as a service (among others) provider will likely be @RiscZero.
Covered their Zeth (what they call a type 0 zkEVM) not too long ago here:
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1700152260213489932
But back to the Celestium we were looking at!
To enable interoperability with other Ethereum-based rollups, it bridges over the DA attestations from Celestia to Ethereum L1.
For this purpose, Blobstream will be used.
Learn more about it here! 👇
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1700152260213489932
However, this is only one of many modular execution layer configurations that can be built on top of Celestia.
As an integral intrastructure components, Celestia and other modular DA layers will enable novel execution layer and application designs.
The modular future is bright my frens! 🧱✨
Make sure to follow me & @RedactedRes for more content like this and to stay ahead of the curve with regards to all things rollups & modularity!🫡
Also, any RT/Like of the below post highly appreciated! 🙏👇
3 images on X
How the covered assets moved · since 02 Nov 2023
Prices as of 23 Oct 2026This explainer walks through how things work without making a call on the token, so price moves since publication are shown as market context.
Covered in this piece
Since then
Zero has written 26 more pieces on Celestia and $TIA since this one.
- What If You Stop Seeing The Forest Because Of All The Trees?On Celestia
- Celestia 'Proof of Governance' proposal: 20x lower inflation and no stakingCovers $TIA
- Why TIA is one of the most predatory VC tokens: pricing, unlocks and inflationBearish call on $TIA
- Initia mainnet and what it means for Celestia's ecosystemCovers $TIA
Daily closes in USD from DefiLlama and Yahoo Finance. Only a bullish or bearish thesis is read as a call; explainers, maps and mentions are context. Not financial advice.