Celestia Token Launch and Valuation Dynamics

Key Insights

• Celestia launched its TIA token via a 6% airdrop to various users. In pre-token futures markets, the token is trading over a $2.0 billion valuation.
• This valuation assumes roughly 2 times the rollup adoption of Ethereum in terms of data availability if price to sales of L2 networks are assumed and assuming $25 per MB revenues for Celestia.
• Celestia’s core challenge is scaling revenues to justify high valuations needed to attract large future rollup customers.

The What

Celestia, the data availability protocol, recently announced the TIA token with a 6% genesis airdrop to developers, researchers, Ethereum rollup users, and Cosmos users.

At first glance, the airdrop itself is uninspiring, with over 576,000 eligible addresses receiving less than $200 on average, assuming the implied fully diluted valuation of $2.75 billion from pre-token futures markets. In addition, the majority of the token supply is allocated to insiders (investors, team, etc.), further continuing the trend away from the early crypto ethos of full community ownership.