Celestia, CLOBs, and the Future of DeFi
Celestia, CLOBs, and the Future of DeFi
The modular blockchain race isn’t about who can hype the loudest, it’s about who can capture the most value from real usage. Right now, Celestia’s approach to data availability (DA) is gaining traction because it solves a real problem: cheap, scalable storage for chains that don’t want to pay Ethereum’s premium.
Among the most demanding of these use cases are on-chain Central Limit Order Books (CLOBs) - a system where buyers and sellers place orders that are matched transparently in a shared order book, commonly used in both traditional and crypto exchanges for efficient, fair trading.
Bringing CLOBs fully on-chain has always been the “endgame” for DeFi, but until now, the infrastructure simply couldn’t handle the throughput and data requirements. That’s changing fast.
What Is Celestia?
Celestia is the modular blockchain powering unstoppable applications with full-stack control. Instead of forcing developers into a one-size-fits-all model, Celestia separates consensus and data availability from execution. This approach gives teams the freedom to choose their own execution environments, frameworks, and scaling strategies - while relying on Celestia for secure consensus and data availability.
Celestia doesn’t force developers into a single execution model. By unbundling consensus and data availability from execution, it gives teams the freedom to build and deploy applications with whatever stack they choose - enabling greater flexibility and control than traditional, all-in-one blockchains.
Why CLOBs Need DA
Data availability (DA) means all transaction data for a blockchain is published and accessible to anyone who wants to verify the chain’s state. Without strong DA, users and nodes can’t be sure they have the full information needed to check the validity of blocks or detect fraud.
Each action in a CLOB (whether placing, modifying, or canceling an order) creates a transaction that needs to be recorded on-chain both rapidly and at low cost. For a CLOB to compete with a centralized exchange, it needs to process thousands of transactions per second, with minimal latency and cost. This is where Celestia’s modular approach to data availability (DA) comes in.
Unlike Ethereum or Solana, which bundle all core functions together, Celestia’s modularity means developers can optimize for the specific needs of high-performance CLOBs - especially when it comes to scalable, affordable data availability.
Why Chains Are Choosing Celestia
According to L2Beat, Celestia secures over $525M in value across chains like Manta and Eclipse, making it the third-largest DA layer after Ethereum and EigenDA.
Source: L2Beat
Data availability isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the backbone of scaling. Every rollup, every L2, every sovereign chain needs it. And Celestia’s modular design, separating execution from consensus and DA, makes it a practical choice for chains that want cheap, scalable storage without the baggage of monolithic chains.
Looking at recent data from Blockworks, the scale of Celestia’s adoption becomes clear.
General-purpose L2s like Eclipse and LightLink are responsible for the vast majority of data posted to Celestia, with Eclipse alone accounting for over two million MiB of blob data.
Source: Blockworks
Gaming, finance, and social L2s are also making use of Celestia’s infrastructure, but general-purpose rollups dominate both data usage and fee generation. In fact, over 80% of all DA fees on Celestia come from just a handful of these high-throughput chains.
Source: Blockworks
For CLOBs, the cost of posting data to Ethereum is still significantly expensive, and Ethereum’s limited blobspace simply can’t support the throughput required for a true on-chain order book. Celestia, on the other hand, offers drastically cheaper and more abundant DA, making it possible for DEXs to experiment, scale, and compete with centralized exchanges.
Why it matters:
For DEXs and rollups: Celestia’s DA model enables the kind of high-frequency, low-latency trading that CLOBs require, at a fraction of the cost of Ethereum.
For appchains: Teams can launch custom, application-specific chains with their own CLOB implementations, without having to bootstrap a validator set or worry about DA bottlenecks.
For scaling: High-throughput chains (e.g., gaming/social apps) can’t rely on Ethereum’s limited blobspace.
For DeFi as a whole: The ability to build performant, composable CLOBs on modular infrastructure could enable decentralized exchanges to reach new levels of capital efficiency and innovation - potentially rivaling the capabilities of their centralized counterparts.
The Fee Thesis: How Celestia Captures Value
Right now, Celestia isn’t monetizing DA. But when it flips the switch (expected later this year), the economics get interesting. Here’s how value accrues:
1. Demand-driven pricing
Celestia’s DA fees are set by a demand-driven mechanism: as more chains post data and compete for blobspace, the cost to use the network can rise. This stands in contrast to some monolithic chains, where blockspace may be underutilized but still subsidized by users or block rewards.
More chains = more competition for blobspace = higher fees. Simple supply and demand.
2. Switching costs
Once a chain deploys on Celestia, switching costs are high. Reconfiguring DA layers isn’t trivial, making Celestia a long-term infrastructure choice rather than a temporary experiment.
3. The Ethereum complement (not competitor)
Celestia doesn’t need to “kill” Ethereum to win. It just needs to be the best DA layer for rollups that don’t want to pay Ethereum’s premium or need more bandwidth.
Think of it like AWS vs. on-prem servers: most projects won’t run their own DA.
The Cost Advantage in Action
According to recent Blockworks data, storing a MiB of data on Celestia has cost between four and twelve cents per month in 2025, while the same on Ethereum has ranged from about a dollar to spiking over $13 per MiB, depending on network conditions.
For CLOBs and other data-intensive apps posting large amounts of data, this isn’t just a marginal improvement - it’s the difference between experimentation and scaling in production.
Source: Blockworks
For high-throughput chains which regularly post more data than the entire daily capacity of Ethereum’s blobspace, this cost advantage is essential for scaling.
If Celestia were to capture even a modest share of the rollup DA market, the resulting fee revenue could quickly reach into the millions annually. As more chains (especially those in gaming and social sectors) launch and scale, Celestia’s blobspace is increasingly becoming a sought-after commodity.
Potential Growth Trajectory
Imagine this adoption curve:
Today: 40+ teams, minimal fees.
Post-monetization: Fees start low but scale with usage.
2025+: If Celestia becomes the default DA for non-Ethereum chains, fees compound as new apps onboard.
Celestia’s TVS is rapidly growing as more chains choose it for DA, reflecting increasing trust and adoption.
Looking Ahead: The CLOB Opportunity
The next chapter of DeFi innovation is likely to be driven by CLOBs and other apps that need huge amounts of data availability. The modular design of Celestia is uniquely suited to meet this demand.
Risks? Sure.
Ethereum’s edge: If EIP-4844 fees drop enough, some rollups might stick with Ethereum.
Competition: Avail and EigenDA are also attracting adoption.
Execution risk: Monetization must be implemented smoothly. A botched fee model could stall momentum.
Conclusion
When Celestia enables DA fees, the network’s value will be increasingly tied to real usage - chains paying for a service that underpins their operations. With CLOBs emerging as one of the most demanding and promising use cases, Celestia’s flexible DA layer stands out as a foundation for building the next generation of decentralized markets.
The DA wars aren’t about ideology. They’re about cost, scalability, and developer traction. And right now, Celestia is coming up as a strong player.