Quick Read on Celestia Token Economics and Airdrop Details

Source: Celestia

Compiled by: Karen, Foresight News

Today, the modular blockchain Celestia announced the launch of its native token TIA and the initiation of the Genesis Drop airdrop. The Genesis Drop targets 7,579 developers and 576,653 on-chain addresses on Ethereum Rollups, Cosmos Hub, and Osmosis, reaching developers, ecosystem project contributors, regular users, stakers, and more.

Celestia is a proof-of-stake blockchain built on CometBFT and Cosmos SDK. Celestia supports in-protocol delegation and will start with an initial set of 100 validators. Staking TIA as a validator or delegator will allow participants to earn staking rewards from the network. Validators can also charge a fee to delegators, thus earning a portion of the staking rewards.

So what is the utility of Celestia's native token TIA? What are the tokenomics and release rules? What are the airdrop criteria?

What is the utility of TIA?

First, TIA is an essential component for developers building modular data availability networks. To achieve data availability (DA) using Celestia, Rollup developers submit PayForBlobs (PFB) transactions on the network, requiring payment in TIA.

Second, similar to ETH on Ethereum-based Rollups, in addition to paying for data availability, developers can choose to use TIA as a gas token to quickly launch their chains. In this model, developers can focus on creating applications or execution layers without the immediate need to issue tokens.

Lastly, TIA provides staking and network governance functions. As a permissionless network built using Cosmos SDK, Celestia uses proof-of-stake to ensure consensus. Like other Cosmos networks, any user can earn a portion of the validator's staking rewards by delegating their TIA to Celestia validators, thus helping to secure the network. TIA also allows the community to play a key role in decentralized governance of critical aspects of Celestia from day one, such as voting on network parameters and managing the community pool.

From the start of the network, Celestia's community pool will receive 2% of all Celestia block rewards. TIA holders can vote to spend TIA from the community pool to fund ecosystem initiatives.

TIA Tokenomics

The total supply of TIA at genesis is 1 billion tokens, with the following distribution:

• 20% for public distribution (7.4% for the genesis airdrop and incentivized testnet distribution, 12.6% for future incentive distribution), fully unlocked at release;
• 26.8% allocated to the Celestia Foundation and core developers for research, development, and ecosystem initiatives (25% unlocked at release, remaining 75% unlocked from Year 1 to Year 4);
• 15.9% allocated to seed round early investors (33% unlocked in the first year, remaining 67% unlocked from Year 1 to Year 2);
• 19.7% allocated to early investors in Series A and B (33% unlocked in the first year, remaining 67% unlocked from Year 1 to Year 2);
• 17.6% allocated to initial core contributors (33% unlocked in the first year, remaining 67% unlocked from Year 1 to Year 3).

The inflation rate of TIA starts at 8% per year, decreasing by 10% each year until it reaches a long-term issuance rate of 1.5%. The exact annual inflation rates are shown in the chart below.

Regarding token release and supply changes, the initial supply of 1 billion TIA at genesis will be subject to several different unlocking schedules. All locked or unlocked tokens can be staked, and staking rewards are unlocked upon receipt.

Celestia Genesis Airdrop

The Celestia Genesis Airdrop will be distributed to 7,579 developers and 576,653 on-chain addresses on Ethereum, Rollups, Cosmos Hub, and Osmosis. Airdrop claims will end on October 17, 2023, at 20:00. At the end of the Genesis Airdrop, any unclaimed tokens (up to 45 million TIA) will be allocated to developers and accounts that submitted addresses.

It is important to note that users in the U.S. or other prohibited jurisdictions will not be able to claim the airdrop.

1. Research and Public Goods (6 million TIA allocated)

This includes research and public goods divided into protocol public goods and infrastructure (4.6 million) and the Eth Research community (1.4 million).

The eligibility criteria for protocol public goods and infrastructure are:

• Contributors to protocol public goods and infrastructure;
• Contributors and dependencies of Celestia;
• Contributors to EIP and BIP.

Celestia will also allocate 1.4 million TIA to members of the Eth Research forum, with the specific eligibility criteria being:

• Eth Research forum users who created at least 1 topic or 1 post before July 5, 2023 (excluding Celestia Labs team members and advisors).

2. Early Modular Ecosystem (14 million TIA)

Celestia will allocate 8.35 million TIA to contributors of organizations in the Celestia ecosystem map, as well as public contributors from organizations participating in Modular Summits 1 and 2, and participants in the first cohort of the Celestia Modular Researcher Program (also excluding Celestia Labs team members and advisors).

An additional 5.65 million TIA will be allocated to GitHub super contributors with at least 4 submissions across all eligible repositories, with more TIA allocated to contributors with a total of at least 23 submissions in the research and public goods and early modular ecosystem criteria.

3. Early Adopters of Ethereum Rollups (20 million TIA)

Early adopters of Ethereum Rollups will receive 20 million TIA rewards, allocated to the top 50% of active users from the top 10 Ethereum Rollups by TVL on L2Beat, with a snapshot taken on January 1, 2023 (Ethereum block 16308181).

Eligible Ethereum Rollups include OP Mainnet, Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, Starknet, zkSync Lite, dYdX (StarkEx), Immutable (StarkEx), SoRare (StarkEx), Loopring, and Metis Andromeda.

To determine users' on-chain activity levels, the Genesis Drop will assign points based on on-chain behavior across Ethereum and all eligible Rollups. Specific considerations include interactions with smart contracts and applications, holding ENS domain names, donations to Gitcoin, gas spent, and recent transactions.

This portion of the airdrop excludes addresses identified as potential "wizards" based on the Hop wizard list, Hop's trading/relay blacklist, OP airdrop #1 wizard filter, and addresses identified by Trusta Labs as likely wizards based on their detection of on-chain clustering behavior and asset transfer methods.

4. Stakers and IBC Relayers on Cosmos Hub and Osmosis (20 million TIA)

Celestia will allocate 18.5 million TIA to stakers and delegators on Cosmos Hub and Osmosis (≥ $75), inviting them to join Celestia and participate in securing and governing the network. The snapshot occurred before January 1, 2023, specifically at Cosmos Hub block 13482205 and Osmosis block 7592794.

The allocation metrics are assessed based on a Cosmos/Osmosis scoring methodology adapted from Trusta Labs' MEDIA scoring framework, measuring factors such as the time of the last transaction, the number of IBC transactions, total value of all transactions, account age, gas consumed, etc.

Additionally, Celestia will allocate 1.5 million TIA to IBC relayers, with the criterion being addresses that conducted MsgRecvPacket transactions before January 1, 2023.