The Race to Connect Blockchains: How EigenLayer, Avail, and Celestia Are Shaping the Modular Crypto Future

Blockchains are often likened to digital islands – secure and self-contained, yet isolated from one another. Over the past decade, various projects have sought to bridge these islands, enabling assets and data to move across networks. But early attempts at “connecting blockchains” largely relied on ad-hoc bridges or federated systems that introduced new risks. Today, a new paradigm is emerging: modular blockchain architecture. In this model, different layers of blockchain functionality – execution, consensus, data storage, and security – can be provided by separate networks that interoperate seamlessly. Three pioneering projects are at the forefront of this movement: Celestia, Avail, and EigenLayer. Each is tackling a piece of the puzzle to make blockchains more connected, scalable and versatile. Here we dive into how these projects work, the problems they aim to solve, and how together they are redefining what a blockchain ecosystem can be.

From Monolithic Chains to a Modular Future

In traditional “monolithic” blockchains like Bitcoin and early Ethereum, every node in the network handles all functions: executing transactions, reaching consensus, ensuring data availability, and finalizing updates. This one-size-fits-all design is simple and secure, but it has inherent scalability limits. All operations occur on a single layer, meaning the chain can become a bottleneck as usage grows. In contrast, modular blockchains separate those duties into distinct layers or modules. For example, one layer might handle only transaction execution (smart contract processing), while another layer focuses solely on ordering transactions and verifying that block data is published for anyone to inspect. By decoupling these responsibilities, a modular approach promises greater flexibility and throughput without sacrificing security.

Monolithic vs. modular blockchain architecture. In a monolithic design (left), a single blockchain handles execution, settlement, consensus, and data availability. In a modular design (right), these functions are split across specialized layers – for instance, rollups handle execution, while separate networks provide consensus and data availability. This division of labor can improve scalability and interoperability by allowing multiple chains to share common security or data layers.

The shift toward modularity has been driven by hard lessons from scaling attempts. Early on, simply increasing a monolithic chain’s capacity led to centralization risks (as seen in debates over Bitcoin and Ethereum block sizes). Layer-2 solutions like rollups emerged, moving execution off the main chain while using the main chain for security and data storage. Rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism on Ethereum demonstrated significant throughput gains, but they highlighted another limitation: the data availability problem. In a rollup, transaction data still must be posted somewhere reliably accessible (so anyone can reconstruct the state or challenge fraud). Posting data on a busy Layer-1 like Ethereum is expensive and limited in capacity, constraining rollups’ performance. This is the problem that Celestia and Avail set out to solve with dedicated data availability networks.

At the same time, projects launching new blockchains or services have faced the bootstrapping problem: securing a new network from scratch is hard. A blockchain’s security is only as strong as the set of validators (or miners) who enforce its rules. Networks like Polkadot and Cosmos tackled this by offering “shared security” or interoperability frameworks, but each with trade-offs – Polkadot parachains share a central relay chain’s security, while Cosmos chains can connect via the IBC protocol but remain responsible for their own validator security. EigenLayer introduces a novel approach to shared security on Ethereum: it lets existing Ethereum stakers “re-stake” their assets to secure additional chains or modules. In essence, it recycles the security of Ethereum’s massive validator set to bootstrap new crypto infrastructure.

Together, these innovations – dedicated data availability layers and restaking for shared security – form the backbone of a modular, multi-chain crypto ecosystem. Blockchains can plug into common data layers, share security resources, and more easily interoperate. Before examining each project in depth, it’s important to understand what each “layer” means in a modular stack:

• Execution Layer: Where transactions are executed and state is updated (e.g. a rollup processing smart contracts).
• Consensus Layer: Where blocks are ordered and finalized by validators (the “heartbeat” of a chain).
• Data Availability Layer: Ensures that all transaction data for each block is published and accessible, so that the network can verify the block’s contents.
• Settlement Layer (optional): A layer for dispute resolution or validation of proofs, where rollups can post fraud proofs or validity proofs to resolve outcomes.

In a monolithic chain, all these roles are fused together on one platform. In a modular design, different networks handle different roles. For instance, Celestia provides consensus and data availability, while many separate execution layers (rollups or app-specific chains) run on top of it. Avail similarly targets the data availability role for many chains. EigenLayer focuses on the security aspect – allowing multiple services to draw on Ethereum’s consensus for trust. We can think of these as complementary efforts: Celestia and Avail tackle scalable data and consensus, and EigenLayer tackles shared security and interoperability. Let’s explore each in turn, including their origins, how they work, and their current status.

Celestia: A Pioneer of Modular Data Availability

Celestia is often credited as the first fully modular blockchain network designed from the ground up. Launched in beta on mainnet in late 2023, Celestia’s core idea is simple but powerful: it provides only consensus and data availability – and intentionally does nothing else. Celestia does not execute user transactions or smart contracts; it doesn’t even verify state transitions of the chains that use it. Instead, it orders blocks of data submitted by various chains (often rollups) and makes sure that block data is widely available for anyone to download and verify. By specializing in these tasks, Celestia aims to serve as a base layer that any number of other chains can rely on to run their execution off-chain.

Technologically, Celestia’s standout feature is data availability sampling (DAS). This is a cryptographic technique that allows light nodes to verify that block data has been published without downloading the entire block. In Celestia, every block’s data is erasure-coded and divided into small pieces. Light nodes randomly sample a few pieces to test if they can retrieve them. If enough random samples succeed, the node gains high confidence that the whole block’s data is intact and available. This method drastically reduces the burden on individual nodes – even a smartphone or browser can help check data availability – while still catching any attempt by a malicious validator to withhold data. It’s like having thousands of independent auditors each spot-check random pages of a large book; if even one page were missing, there’s a high probability some auditor would notice. As long as at least some light nodes are honest and dilligently sampling, data withholding becomes virtually impossible without being detected.

Celestia’s use of erasure coding and KZG polynomial commitments under the hood makes this sampling possible. Erasure coding adds redundancy to the data: even if parts of a block are missing, the original can be reconstructed from the coded pieces. KZG commitments (the same math later adopted by Ethereum for its proto-danksharding upgrade) allow compact proofs that the data pieces correspond to a correct original polynomial, enabling light clients to verify samples quickly. These techniques mean Celestia can safely support much larger block sizes than a typical blockchain. Upon its mainnet “beta” launch (codenamed Lemon Mint in October 2023), Celestia started with blocks up to 2–8 MB, which is already far larger than Ethereum’s ~0.1 MB blocks. In fact, Celestia’s roadmap envisions scaling to 1000 MB (1 GB) blocks, which could support tens of thousands of transactions per second in aggregate. Early tests indicate impressive throughput: in April 2025, a Celestia testnet achieved ~21 MB/s throughput using 128 MB blocks. The design even exhibits a counterintuitive property: the more light nodes join to help sample data, the larger the blocks can grow while remaining secure. In other words, adding non-validators (light clients) actually increases network capacity, a novel form of scalability by decentralization.

Why go to such lengths just to ensure data is available? The benefit is that Celestia makes it easy to deploy new blockchains (or rollups) without launching your own validator network or worrying about data availability limits. A developer can create a rollup with any execution logic – be it EVM smart contracts, a gaming-specific chain, or a privacy-focused chain – and have it post its transaction data onto Celestia. Celestia’s validators will order those transactions and guarantee the data can be retrieved, while the rollup’s own nodes (or users) are responsible for executing the transactions and verifying state transitions. This gives developers tremendous freedom: they can pick their own execution environment (EVM, WASM, Cosmos SDK, etc.) and even have their own token and governance, yet still inherit strong data availability and consensus from Celestia. Mustafa Al-Bassam, Celestia’s co-founder, has described this as moving from the “dial-up era” of monolithic blockchains to a “broadband era” where block space is abundant and cheap. Instead of competing for limited throughput on a single chain, many specialized chains can run in parallel, all anchored by Celestia. Developers no longer have to shoehorn their app into someone else’s chain or clone a Layer-1 and recruit validators from scratch – they can start a sovereign chain that plugs into Celestia’s consensus and data layer.

Notably, Celestia does not enforce any execution rules on the chains using it. This means it doesn’t check fraud proofs or validity proofs for rollups – those are handled either by the rollup’s users or by a separate settlement layer if one exists. This approach is called “sovereign rollups”, where the rollup is sovereign over its own state (no higher authority automatically slashes bad behavior). If a sovereign rollup using Celestia produces an invalid state transition, Celestia’s validators will still include and publish the data (as long as it’s properly formatted), because Celestia’s job is not to know what’s valid or invalid in that rollup – that’s up to the rollup community or an optional settlement layer. This design maximizes Celestia’s neutrality and simplicity, but it means rollup projects have a choice: they can be fully sovereign (with social consensus to handle any faults), or they can introduce their own fraud proofs or proofs and maybe post those to some security layer (even potentially Ethereum or another chain). In practice, some teams plan to use Celestia for data while using Ethereum as a settlement layer – achieving a hybrid model where Ethereum verifies proofs for security, and Celestia provides cheaper data availability. The Cosmos-based rollup Eclipse is one example that considered using Celestia for data and Solana’s VM for execution, while settling to Ethereum – illustrating the creative combinations modular architecture enables. Celestia itself is built with Cosmos SDK and uses the Tendermint (now CometBFT) consensus algorithm (PoS based). It currently has 100+ validators and implements features like namespaced Merkle trees to allow efficient retrieval of specific rollup data from blocks. The network achieved near-instant finality (~6-second block times with fast finality) with a 2023 upgrade, making it responsive enough for practical use.

The momentum behind Celestia has grown rapidly. The project (originally named LazyLedger in its research phase) secured significant funding to realize its vision. In March 2021, Celestia’s team raised a $1.5 million seed round to develop a “modular consensus and data availability layer”. A year later in October 2022, they raised $55 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital. And by September 2024, the Celestia Foundation raised another $100 million (led again by Bain) to fuel development, bringing total funding to $155M. Such backing underscores the high hopes for modular blockchains. Celestia launched its first public testnet (Mamaki) in 2022, followed by developer testnets like Arabica and Mocha, before achieving its Mainnet Beta launch in October 2023. With the mainnet live (albeit labeled “beta”), attention turned to building out the ecosystem of rollups on Celestia. Over half a million users participated in Celestia’s early testnets and were rewarded in an airdrop of its native token $TIA in late 2023. This broad community test hinted at the demand for Celestia’s blockspace: indeed, Celestia’s token airdrop was called one of the “hottest” of 2023.

Several projects are already integrating with or building on Celestia. For example, Nexus – a network of bridges using Cosmos’s Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol and Hyperlane – launched alongside Celestia’s mainnet to help bootstrap liquidity and connectivity between Celestia rollups and other ecosystems. Celestia’s upcoming upgrades aim to further enhance interoperability; the Lotus upgrade slated for mid-2025 will integrate Hyperlane interoperability, allowing Celestia rollups to easily communicate with Ethereum and other chains. In short, Celestia is positioning itself not just as a data layer, but as the hub of a new modular multi-chain world – one where new blockchains can sprout with minimal friction, inheriting security (via shared data availability and consensus) and easily interacting with each other through standard protocols.

Celestia’s approach is not without trade-offs. Because it doesn’t validate what’s in the data it carries, there is a risk that a chain using Celestia could go rogue (fail to publish fraud proofs, etc.) and Celestia would continue to publish its data regardless. The safety of end-users still depends on the chains built on top of Celestia doing their job correctly (much as Ethereum rollup users depend on the rollup operators and fraud proofs). However, by removing execution from the base layer, Celestia greatly simplifies the consensus engine and maximizes throughput. The promise of cheaper data availability is a big draw – Celestia is pitched as a cheaper alternative to storing data on layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum. This could alleviate the high fees and congestion that L2 rollups face when posting data to Ethereum today. It’s notable that Ethereum itself is evolving in a similar direction: with Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844) introduced in 2023, Ethereum began adding dedicated “blob” data space to blocks, specifically to make rollup data cheaper. In the coming years Ethereum plans to implement full Danksharding with data availability sampling, effectively adopting many of the techniques that Celestia uses (though integrated into Ethereum’s beacon chain). This raises a big question: will Ethereum’s own upgrades negate the need for external data layers like Celestia, or will the multi-chain world still favor independent, specialized layers? Proponents of Celestia argue that a sovereign modular layer can innovate and scale faster, and serve many ecosystems (not just Ethereum’s rollups). Moreover, Ethereum’s focus is on scaling its rollups, whereas Celestia is neutral ground for any chain or rollup, whether Ethereum-based or not.

As of mid-2025, Celestia stands as a trailblazer for modular blockchains. It has proven the feasibility of data availability sampling at scale on a live network and gathered a community of users and developers eager to launch new chains. The race to connect blockchains has one strong contender in Celestia: a base layer that many chains can share. But it is not the only player. In parallel, another project emerged from the Ethereum community to tackle the data availability challenge – from a different angle.

Avail: Data Layer for an Interconnected Multi-Chain Ecosystem

Around the same time Celestia was taking shape, Polygon (the team known for its Ethereum scaling solutions) was quietly working on a similar concept called Avail. First announced in mid-2021, Polygon Avail is a general-purpose, scalable data availability layer (DAL) for blockchains. The premise of Avail is much like Celestia’s: provide a reliable, decentralized ledger where other chains can dump their transaction data, thereby decoupling the data availability and ordering function from execution. As Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun put it, “Avail decouples the data availability layer, making it easier for chain developers to focus on execution and settlement”. By late 2022 and 2023, Avail began to gain its own identity separate from Polygon. In fact, in March 2023 Polygon decided to spin off Avail into an independent project, with Arjun leaving Polygon Labs to lead Avail full-time. This spin-out underscored how important Avail’s mission had become: it wasn’t just an internal feature for Polygon, but a standalone attempt to unify and connect many blockchains via a shared data layer.

Technically, Avail’s design philosophy converges with Celestia’s on many points. Avail uses erasure coding and polynomial commitments (KZG) to implement data availability sampling and proofs. In a 2021 introductory post, Polygon’s team described Avail’s architecture in detail: Avail arranges each block’s data in a two-dimensional matrix, applies erasure coding to each column (doubling the data with redundant pieces), and then uses Kate (KZG) commitments to commit to each row. Light clients sample random cells of this matrix and use the KZG proofs to verify consistency. If any part of the data were missing, a light client would catch an inconsistency in its random sample with extremely high probability. This ensures that a block is only considered valid in Avail’s consensus if all its data is available – exactly the same principle Celestia follows. As the Polygon team noted, “Avail reduces the problem of block verification to data availability verification, which can be done efficiently with constant cost using data availability checks.” In other words, Avail validators don’t execute transactions; they just ensure every block is accompanied by enough data that anyone could later execute those transactions if needed.

One key objective Avail set forth is to enable “standalone chains or sidechains with arbitrary execution environments to bootstrap validator security without needing their own validator set, by guaranteeing transaction data availability.” This paints a picture of many heterogeneous chains – whether built with Polygon’s SDK, Cosmos SDK, Substrate, or other frameworks – all writing their data to Avail and thereby outsourcing one of the hardest parts of running a chain (data availability and consensus). Like Celestia, Avail is agnostic to the execution logic of those chains. They can be Ethereum-like, or UTXO-based, or anything; Avail doesn’t validate the state, it just holds the data and orders it. The Avail team explicitly mentioned supporting chains built with Polygon SDK, Cosmos SDK, or Substrate, highlighting a cross-ecosystem ambition from the start. If Celestia emerged from the Cosmos world, Avail has roots in the Ethereum world, but both target a neutral ground where diverse chains meet.

One notable difference in positioning is that Avail has emphasized interoperability and connectivity features alongside data availability. In early 2024, when Avail raised a $27M seed round to accelerate development, it revealed a three-pronged product vision called the “Trinity”. This Trinity consists of: Avail DA (the base data availability layer), Nexus, and Fusion Security.

• Avail DA is the core data layer (“Avail provides data space for auxiliary layer-2 networks or rollups” as Coindesk described it). It’s expected to go live by Q2 2024, providing the fundamental service of ordering blocks and ensuring data availability for client chains.

• Nexus is described as a “zero-knowledge, proof-based coordination rollup on Avail DA” that will act as an interoperability hub. Essentially, Nexus will be a layer that connects different rollups and chains running on Avail, allowing them to communicate and transact with each other. According to the team, Nexus will serve as a verification hub unifying a wide array of rollups both inside and outside the Avail ecosystem, using Avail DA as the root of trust. By employing zero-knowledge proofs, Nexus can coordinate cross-rollup operations securely. This addresses a crucial aspect of “connecting blockchains”: it’s not enough to share a data layer; chains also need ways to pass messages or assets trustlessly among themselves. Nexus is Avail’s answer to that, enabling an interoperable multi-chain environment on top of the shared data layer.

• Fusion Security is the third component, focusing on shared security. It aims to take crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ether and contribute to the security of the Avail ecosystem. While details are sparse, this seems to hint at a system where major external assets could be staked or utilized to secure Avail and perhaps its connected chains. It may involve something akin to re-staking or providing collateral that backs the validity of Avail’s services – conceptually somewhat like EigenLayer’s restaking, but implemented within Avail’s framework. The goal is likely to enhance Avail’s security by involving more capital and more diverse stakeholders (hence “multi-token staking” as one description suggests). Fusion Security is planned for 2025, indicating a longer-term aspiration to make Avail not only a data provider but also a security provider.

By pursuing Nexus and Fusion, Avail is explicitly trying to be the “unifying factor” for disparate rollups. Anurag Arjun, Avail’s founder, noted the fragmented nature of Ethereum’s rollup landscape and the need for a neutral party to help coordinate them: “You really need a credible third party like Avail to come and work with all these teams… We essentially want to be that unifying factor.” This reflects a slightly different philosophy from Celestia’s more minimal approach. Celestia focuses on doing one thing (data consensus) extremely well, and relies on others for settlement/bridge layers. Avail is more holistic, aiming to provide data availability and a built-in interoperability layer (Nexus), and even tie in to security economics (Fusion). One could say Celestia is going for the UNIX philosophy (“do one thing well”) whereas Avail is going for a broader platform play under one umbrella.

Despite these conceptual differences, Avail and Celestia are often seen as direct competitors – “rival” data availability networks in the words of the press. Indeed, industry observers have framed it as a race. Avail’s backers include heavyweights like Founders Fund and Dragonfly Capital, signaling confidence that more than one data network might thrive. Coindesk in early 2024 described the emergence of these data layers as “one of the most hotly discussed trends in crypto,” noting they could transform blockchain architecture into a modular design. Celestia’s mainnet arrival in October 2023 “brought the concept to limelight,” and not far behind was EigenDA – an Ethereum-aligned effort we’ll discuss soon – and Avail itself. In this modular blockchain trifecta, each project takes a different path: Celestia via a new L1, Avail via a dedicated layer initially incubated by Polygon, and EigenDA via Ethereum’s restaking ecosystem.

Where does Avail stand currently? As of mid-2025, Avail is transitioning from development into deployment. A public testnet was launched (in mid-2022, Anurag Arjun released an early testnet for Avail), and the project has been refining its protocol with input from the Ethereum and Polygon communities. The fundraising and spin-out in 2023–2024 provided resources to push towards mainnet. Avail’s seed round of $27M (Feb 2024) was earmarked to finish the core products – DA, Nexus, Fusion – with Avail DA expected live by Q2 2024. If that timeline held, Avail’s data layer may already be live or imminently launching as we write. One tangible sign of Avail’s progress is its partnerships: in December 2023, Avail announced an agreement with StarkWare, the developer of the popular StarkNet Layer-2, to collaborate on new “appchains” using StarkWare’s technology and Avail’s data layer. Under this deal, Avail will provide data availability for application-specific chains built with StarkWare’s Madara sequencer (a decentralized sequencer for Layer-3 chains), effectively integrating Avail into StarkWare’s ecosystem for scaling Ethereum. This kind of partnership is significant – it shows Avail positioning itself as the go-to data layer even for advanced use cases like Layer-3 custom chains, potentially in competition or parallel to Celestia. If StarkNet’s ecosystem can spin out appchains that use Avail for data, it validates Avail’s model and brings real usage. Avail has also joined discussions in the broader Ethereum community on how off-chain data availability can complement on-chain scaling. Its documentation emphasizes support for Validiums (off-chain data, zk-proof-secured rollups) and other L2 models that want more throughput by moving data off Ethereum. In essence, Avail wants to be the scalable data hosting layer that all these solutions plug into.

From a technical governance standpoint, it’s worth noting that Avail is implementing a Proof-of-Stake network with its own token (likely used for validator staking and possibly for cross-chain fees). Avail’s design mentions “multi-token staking” for decentralization – potentially meaning that validators might need to stake a basket of assets or that multiple assets can be used, but details remain to be seen. The consensus protocol is likely Tendermint-style (Polygon’s teams are experienced in Tendermint and Substrate) but customized for the data availability checks. As Avail becomes independent, it will have to build its own validator community. Interestingly, the Fusion concept hints that Avail might attract security from other chains (via BTC, ETH collateral), which could differentiate it from Celestia’s more self-contained staking of its native token.

In summary, Avail represents another strong push toward a modular, interconnected blockchain world. It shares the same fundamental insight as Celestia – that separating data availability and consensus into a specialized layer can supercharge scalability – but it wraps that in a vision of cross-chain connectivity and shared security. Avail wants to be the glue that holds many chains together: the common data layer, the bridge hub (Nexus), and even a platform that leverages liquidity from major coins to secure new networks (Fusion). If successful, Avail could enable a flourishing of new appchains and rollups that are all mutually interoperable and easy to spin up, accelerating Web3 innovation across the board. Of course, Avail will also have to compete for adoption: developers may choose Celestia, Avail, or even Ethereum’s in-protocol data solutions depending on various factors (costs, trust assumptions, community). This brings us to the third major player in the race – one that comes at the problem from Ethereum’s angle and focuses on reusing Ethereum’s security for modular projects.

EigenLayer: Re-Staking Ethereum’s Security for New Modules

While Celestia and Avail build new base layers to share data and consensus, EigenLayer takes a different approach to connecting blockchains: it extends the security of an existing blockchain (Ethereum) to new use-cases. In essence, EigenLayer is a “re-staking” protocol that allows Ethereum stakers and validators to opt-in to securing additional networks or modules on top of Ethereum. By doing so, it creates a marketplace of shared security – a pool of capital (staked ETH) and trust that other projects can tap into, without needing to launch their own token or validator set from scratch.

Imagine you’re an Ethereum validator with 32 ETH staked and securing the Ethereum 2.0 consensus. With EigenLayer, you could “re-stake” that same 32 ETH into EigenLayer’s smart contracts, which then permit you to validate other services known as Active Validated Services (AVS). These AVSs could be anything: an oracle network, a cross-chain bridge, a new sidechain, or even a data availability layer (EigenLayer’s team themselves have a module called EigenDA). When you opt-in, you agree that if you misbehave in any of those services (as determined by their own slashing conditions), your staked ETH can be slashed as penalty. This opt-in “security sharing” is entirely voluntary and modular – each validator can choose which services to support, and each service can set its own requirements and rewards.

EigenLayer’s core idea was born from the observation that Ethereum’s proof-of-stake has amassed a large, economically secure validator set (over $40B in staked ETH by 2025), which is a form of “cryptoeconomic energy” that could secure more than just the Ethereum blockchain itself. There is a lot of redundant security in the crypto ecosystem – hundreds of new projects launch their own token and mini-validators, often struggling to get enough honest participants. EigenLayer says: why not recycle the security from Ethereum and allocate it to these new projects, so you don’t need a new token and you get instant decentralization from Ethereum’s thousands of validators? In doing so, it hopes to accelerate innovation by lowering the barrier to launching new infrastructure. Developers can focus on the unique logic of their service, while trusting Ethereum’s validator community (via EigenLayer) to run the nodes and enforce the rules.

Launched by the startup EigenLabs (founded by researchers including Sreeram Kannan), EigenLayer began testing in 2023 and quickly captured attention as a potential game-changer for the Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik Buterin and other Ethereum core developers have acknowledged both the promise and the risks of restaking. On one hand, reusing Ethereum’s security can make the whole ecosystem more robust and interconnected. On the other, there are caution flags: if too many external services piggyback on Ethereum’s stakers, a failure or exploit in one could theoretically cascade and slash a lot of ETH, potentially threatening Ethereum itself. Buterin in mid-2023 warned against overloading Ethereum’s consensus with excessive extra duties (like watching other chains via restaking), lest it increase complexity and attack surface. EigenLayer’s design tries to mitigate risks by using a “opt-in and opt-out” model: only validators who explicitly choose to restake are affected by EigenLayer, and slashing conditions are isolated per service (so an incident on one AVS would only slash those who opted into that AVS, not the entire Ethereum set). Essentially, Ethereum’s base consensus remains unchanged; EigenLayer operates in smart contracts on Ethereum that a subset of validators interact with.

By early 2024, the excitement around EigenLayer translated into major funding: EigenLabs raised $50 million in a Series A, and shortly after secured an additional $100 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). This war chest (over $150M total reportedly) indicates high confidence that restaking will become an integral part of Ethereum’s roadmap. Indeed, in April 2025, Nansen reported that EigenLayer had about $8 billion TVL in restaked assets – effectively a measure of ETH participating in restaking. If accurate, that suggests a significant portion of Ethereum stakers are on board, attracted by the promise of earning additional yields from securing multiple services. EigenLayer has even conducted an airdrop and launched its own token ($EIGEN) incentives for early adopters, distributing 15% of its token supply to early restakers in a Season 1 airdrop. This was likely done to decentralize governance and reward those taking on the early risk of restaking.

So what new capabilities does EigenLayer actually unlock? We can break it down by looking at some example AVS (Actively Validated Services) that either already exist or are envisioned:

• EigenDA (Data Availability): As mentioned, one of EigenLayer’s flagship modules is EigenDA, a data availability layer similar in goal to Celestia/Avail but secured by Ethereum restakers. If EigenDA comes online, a project launching a rollup could choose to use EigenDA for data availability, effectively leveraging Ethereum’s validator set (via restakers) to guarantee data is published. This provides an Ethereum-aligned alternative to Celestia/Avail. Coindesk noted that EigenDA was “in development” as of late 2023. By tying into EigenLayer, EigenDA wouldn’t need its own separate token or large validator recruitment; it inherits security from re-staked ETH. This underscores how EigenLayer and Celestia/Avail could become competitors: a rollup could either post data to Celestia (with Celestia’s own token and validators) or post to EigenDA (with ETH validators via restaking).

• Bridges and Cross-Chain Services: Cross-chain bridges have notoriously been weak points, often secured by a limited set of validators or multi-sigs leading to hacks. With EigenLayer, a bridge could be built as an AVS that uses dozens or hundreds of Ethereum validators (those who opt-in) to validate cross-chain transfers, vastly increasing its trustlessness. Because those validators have skin in the game (their ETH stake), attacking or bribing them is far more expensive than attacking a typical standalone bridge. Several teams have expressed interest in building EigenLayer-secured bridges and messaging protocols, which could enhance interoperability across blockchains.

• Oracles: Services like Chainlink provide off-chain data to blockchains and are critical infrastructure. An oracle network could use EigenLayer to get a ready-made set of staked ETH validators to report data and get slashed if they lie. This could either complement or compete with existing oracle providers, bringing more decentralization. For example, an oracle AVS might have EigenLayer stakers collectively sign price feeds or random beacons.

• New Consensus or Research Chains: A project inventing a novel blockchain or sharding mechanism could launch it as an AVS, essentially piggybacking on Ethereum’s validator set for security while running its own consensus rules in parallel. This is a bit like Polkadot’s model (parachains reusing relay chain validators), but EigenLayer does it on Ethereum in a permissionless, opt-in way. It creates a sandbox for consensus experimentation where the economic security is there from day one. We see early hints of this in collaborations like Espresso Systems (behind the Espresso sequencer for rollups) working with EigenLayer – they can focus on their rollup/sequencer tech and rely on restaked ETH for security.

EigenLayer operates entirely on Ethereum’s Layer 1 via smart contracts. Validators who join must run additional software (for each AVS they support) and stake ETH into EigenLayer contracts, but they still perform their normal duties for Ethereum itself. EigenLayer introduces an operator-delegation model: not every ETH holder who restakes needs to run the new services themselves; they can delegate to qualified operators who run nodes for the AVS. This means even if you’re staking via a liquid staking token (LST) or through an exchange, you could potentially opt those into EigenLayer and have some professional node operator handle the actual validation tasks. It’s a two-sided market – AVS creators want as many validators as possible to opt-in, and validators want worthwhile AVS with good rewards. EigenLayer’s contracts mediate this, and they enforce slashing across all opted-in assets if a validator is proven to misbehave in an AVS. By April 2025, the ecosystem was taking shape: Binance’s staking service integrated EigenLayer options, and projects like Renzo (a liquid restaking solution) launched to make restaking accessible.

Of course, with power comes risk. EigenLayer’s team and community are very aware of the “contagion” risk – if one AVS has a flawed slashing condition or is hostile, it could grief Ethereum validators. To mitigate this, EigenLayer is rolling out in phases, initially with whitelisted, vetted AVS and limited scope, and plans for more permissionless addition of AVS later. They also emphasize “attributable slashing” – only slash those who actually did wrong, and design AVS so that any slash is provably linked to malicious action by a specific subset of validators. This avoids scenarios where honest validators get unfairly slashed due to others’ misdeeds. The contract and crypto-economic design is complex, but it’s undergoing audits and scrutiny by the Ethereum research community. If successful, EigenLayer could make Ethereum not just a base layer for rollups, but the security bedrock for myriad modules – effectively turning Ethereum into a decentralized trust services platform.

To put it simply, EigenLayer connects blockchains by connecting their security. Instead of every new chain or service floating alone with its own small life raft of security, EigenLayer ties many to the big aircraft carrier of Ethereum. A common set of validators (ETH stakers) can verify events on multiple chains, creating natural interoperability. For instance, if the same validator set secures Chain A and Chain B (via EigenLayer), then a transaction proven on Chain A can be recognized on Chain B without need for an external bridge, since those validators witnessed it directly. This could streamline cross-chain functionality and reduce reliance on third-party bridges. It’s somewhat analogous to how Polkadot’s parachains all share one validator set and thus can communicate under a unified trust model – but here it’s happening on Ethereum in a voluntary fashion.

EigenLayer’s rise also raises interesting governance questions. Ethereum’s ethos has been cautious about too much complexity at the base layer. EigenLayer builds on top as a layer-2-like solution (though it’s not about scaling, but about extended functionality). If a large portion of ETH becomes re-staked, one could argue EigenLayer becomes an extension of Ethereum’s consensus. The community will need to watch whether any adverse incentives or centralization creep in (e.g., will large staking pools dominate certain AVS? Will restaking disproportionately benefit big players?). So far, the approach has been relatively decentralized – a report noted concerns about large pools, but also that EigenLayer’s model aims to mitigate systemic failures by isolating risks. The fact that a16z and others have poured funding suggests they see restaking as a pillar of the future crypto infrastructure.

Complementary or Competitive? The New Modular Landscape

Having explored Celestia, Avail, and EigenLayer individually, it’s clear they share a common vision: a multi-chain crypto ecosystem that is more scalable and interconnected than the siloed, monolithic chains of yesterday. Yet they approach it from different angles and will likely coexist with both cooperation and competition.

Celestia vs. Avail: Both are pure data availability networks serving execution layers. They inevitably invite comparison. Celestia had first-mover advantage, launching earlier and securing more public fanfare (and a token). Avail, with its Polygon pedigree, has deep ties to the Ethereum scaling community and may attract projects already in the Polygon/zk-rollup universe. Technically, they are very similar – both use data sampling, erasure coding, PoS validators, etc. One differentiator, as noted, is strategic: Celestia sticks to minimalism, whereas Avail bundles in interoperability (Nexus) and potentially multi-asset security (Fusion). According to an analysis by Lithium Finance, “Celestia was the first network to separate data availability and consensus from execution... Avail takes a slightly different direction, designed to work across many chains and focusing on decentralization through multi-token staking. It also allows application chains to interact with each other without being tightly synchronized.” In other words, Celestia gives flexibility to build independent rollups that can easily connect to other ecosystems, and Avail emphasizes cross-chain integration and diverse security inputs. In practice, a project will choose a data layer based on performance, cost, and ecosystem alignment. It’s possible we’ll see specialization: perhaps Avail becomes favored in the Ethereum Layer-2 realm (if StarkWare and other rollup teams integrate it), while Celestia might attract more sovereign chains and Cosmos-style appchains. Or vice versa, depending on network effects and reliability. One thing is certain: both networks are betting that many new chains will launch needing their services – which is plausible as the blockchain industry diversifies into specialized chains for gaming, social media, enterprise, etc.

EigenLayer vs. Celestia/Avail: At first glance, EigenLayer is a different animal – it’s not a data network per se. However, EigenLayer’s EigenDA puts it in direct competition for the role of data availability provider. If EigenDA goes live, a rollup might weigh using EigenDA (backed by Ethereum’s security) against Celestia/Avail. EigenDA could perhaps offer lower trust assumptions (Ethereum’s economic security is huge) and convenience if the rollup already is Ethereum-centric. Celestia might offer cheaper costs or more sovereignty (no reliance on Ethereum). It could come down to economics: how high are fees on each data layer, and how easy is integration? There’s also a world where these solutions complement each other: for instance, an optimistic rollup could post fraud proofs to Ethereum (leveraging Ethereum security) but put bulk transaction data on Celestia (leveraging Celestia’s throughput). In fact, some designs like that have been floated (using Celestia for data and Ethereum for settlement/finality). Avail’s Nexus and EigenLayer’s interoperability efforts could also work together – e.g., an EigenLayer oracle feeding into an Avail-connected appchain.

EigenLayer stands out in that it can support multiple use cases beyond data. It could even underpin Celestia or Avail themselves: theoretically, either network could choose to become an EigenLayer AVS, merging their validator set with Ethereum’s. That’s unlikely given they have their own tokens and communities, but it shows how EigenLayer is more of a platform than a single service. We might see Celestia and Avail adopt something from EigenLayer’s playbook too: for instance, could Celestia someday allow restaking of $TIA across multiple Celestia instances or allow other chains to borrow its validator set? It already separates consensus and execution; adding a notion of shared security between Celestia and other zones (via IBC or similar) could happen.

Interoperability and Bridges: All three solutions aim to make blockchain interactions smoother. Avail’s Nexus will connect rollups on Avail. Celestia relies on IBC and external bridges (like Hyperlane) to connect its ecosystem with others. EigenLayer could empower a web of cross-chain oracles and bridges. In the end, users don’t care which chain an app runs on – they care that they can move assets or data easily and trust the outcome. These innovations are converging toward a world where a user might, for example, use an application-specific rollup that stores data on Celestia, posts proofs to Ethereum (maybe via EigenLayer), and can natively swap assets with another rollup using Avail’s Nexus bridge. It sounds complex under the hood, but if done right, the complexity is abstracted away and users simply experience faster, cheaper transactions and a unified multi-chain wallet.

Historical Context and Outlook: It’s worth reflecting how we arrived here. In the late 2010s, scaling was about on-chain sharding (Ethereum 2.0’s original plan, which evolved) and multi-chain networks like Polkadot (launched 2020) and Cosmos (2019 with IBC in 2021). Polkadot introduced the idea of shared security across parachains; Cosmos introduced seamless interoperability (IBC) but left security to each chain. Today’s modular approach can be seen as synthesizing those ideas: Celestia and Avail provide a shared security layer for data/consensus that many chains use (somewhat akin to Polkadot’s relay chain, but without executing state and without strict coupling), and protocols like EigenLayer and Nexus emphasize cross-chain communication (like Cosmos’s bridging ethos). Interestingly, Ethereum itself pivoted to a rollup-centric roadmap, effectively positioning itself as a settlement and data layer for rollups. Proto-danksharding (EIP-4844) in 2023 was the first step, adding cheap blob space for rollups. Full danksharding in the future will make Ethereum a high-capacity data availability layer as well. This means Ethereum L1 is itself becoming more modular (focusing on consensus and data, leaving execution to L2s). This philosophical alignment between Ethereum’s roadmap and projects like Celestia/Avail suggests modular designs are broadly seen as the path forward.

However, the presence of independent layers raises some governance and incentive questions. If much of the action moves to these layers, how will value and fees be distributed? For example, will Celestia’s token capture fees from all rollups using it? Will Ethereum’s value accrue from providing security to EigenLayer AVS? Possibly, we’ll see MEV (Miner/Maximal Extractable Value) markets spanning multiple layers – e.g., Celestia block producers could have MEV auctions for ordering rollup transactions, etc. Coordination between layers (like ensuring a rollup’s state is finalized only when data is finalized on Celestia) must be handled carefully to avoid sync issues or attack vectors. These are active areas of research and development.

Challenges and Criticisms

While the modular approach is promising, it comes with its own set of challenges:

• Complexity: Introducing multiple layers (data layer, settlement layer, execution layer, etc.) makes the overall architecture more complex. There are more points of failure and more synchrony assumptions. Ensuring all layers talk to each other correctly is non-trivial. New failure modes could appear – for instance, what happens if a data availability layer goes down or significantly delays data? Rollups depending on it might halt, even if their execution layer is fine.

• Latency: More layers can mean added latency for transactions. If a rollup must wait for Celestia to finalize data and then wait for an EigenLayer oracle to update something, it could slow things. Designs are being optimized to minimize this (Celestia gives near-instant finality, which helps).

• Economic Alignment: Each layer has its own token (Celestia’s TIA, Avail presumably its token, EigenLayer using ETH but also its EIGEN token for governance/rewards). Aligning incentives between these is tricky. What if, say, Celestia’s token holders vote to raise fees high, driving rollups away to Avail? Or if EigenLayer’s governance and Ethereum’s core devs have disagreements on what services should be allowed? Overlapping communities need to stay in dialogue.

• Security Assumptions: Celestia and Avail’s security depend on their validator sets and assumptions like at least 20% of nodes honest for data sampling, etc. If those networks fail to maintain sufficient decentralization or have bugs in sampling logic, it could be catastrophic for those using them. EigenLayer’s security piggybacks on Ethereum, but it inherits Ethereum’s assumptions plus adds its own (smart contract risk, potential correlated slashing causing chaos, etc.). Shared security means shared risk – that’s both the selling point and the concern. If one widely-used layer is compromised, many chains could be affected. For instance, a major bug in Celestia’s consensus could impact hundreds of rollups that rely on it. That said, decoupling can also contain failures: if an execution layer has a bug, it doesn’t bring down the whole ecosystem, just that rollup.

• Regulatory and Social: More interconnected systems might attract regulatory scrutiny, as they resemble large networks rather than isolated communities. Also, socially, there may be resistance from incumbents (e.g., if you’re an L1 project, adopting Celestia might mean phasing out your own validator community). Transitioning existing projects to modular layers will take time.

Thus, while the race to connect blockchains via modular crypto is on, it’s not a sprint but a marathon. Each of the three projects we discussed is still in active development or early stages of deployment. Celestia is in mainnet beta with its ecosystem forming; Avail is on the cusp of launching its mainnet and modules; EigenLayer is gradually opening up to more services on Ethereum mainnet through 2024. We are likely to see parallel experimentation – perhaps some high-profile successes (like a popular game or social app launching its own chain on Celestia, or a major DeFi protocol using EigenLayer oracles) and possibly some setbacks (maybe an early bug or economic exploit in one of these new systems).

Conclusion: Toward a Modular, Interconnected Blockchain Ecosystem

The emergence of Celestia, Avail, and EigenLayer marks a paradigm shift in blockchain design. Instead of building ever bigger one-chain-to-rule-them-all systems, the crypto community is embracing specialization and collaboration across layers. This modular vision holds the promise of unprecedented scalability – millions of transactions per second spread across many execution shards – while preserving or even enhancing security through shared validation and sampling techniques. It also promises greater innovation freedom: developers can mix-and-match components (security from here, data from there, execution of their choice) to create custom platforms tailored to their application needs.

In the coming years, we will likely see a proliferation of new blockchains that don’t live in isolation, but rather plug into a tapestry of base layers and services. A DeFi exchange might run as a rollup on one data network, a gaming universe might exist on its own chain secured by Ethereum restakers, and they could interoperate via standardized bridges or hubs. Users might not even realize which chain they are on – much like users of internet apps don’t know which data center their packets hit – they’ll simply trust that the underlying modular infrastructure is doing its job.

Importantly, this modular approach is not zero-sum. Celestia, Avail, and EigenLayer each address slightly different aspects, and they might thrive by focusing on their niches while collaborating at the edges. We could envision, for example, a Celestia rollup using an EigenLayer-provided oracle, or an Avail appchain settling critical proofs on Ethereum. The end goal for all is a more connected blockchain universe, where value and information flow more freely and securely.

There will be challenges to navigate. The projects must prove their security and reliability over time. The economics must make sense – will paying for two or three layers of infrastructure be affordable for users? Early indications are positive, as specialization can lead to efficiency gains (e.g., Celestia’s high throughput could lower costs per byte of data). There’s also a learning curve for developers to design apps in this modular model, but frameworks like the OP Stack (from Optimism) and Cosmos SDK are already evolving to allow plugging in different data availability backends or settlement layers. Tooling and standards (for example, how to verify Celestia data availability within Ethereum, or how to standardize slashing conditions on EigenLayer) will need to mature.

As of 2025, the race is on. Celestia’s team touts that they’ve taken blockspace from “dial-up to broadband” and are now aiming for “fiber optic”. Avail’s founder envisions being the “unifying factor” for disparate rollups. EigenLayer’s creators foresee an “100x innovation” as Ethereum’s security becomes a reusable resource. It’s an exciting time in blockchain infrastructure – these ambitious projects are no longer just white papers, but live networks securing real value. For the crypto community and the broader world, modular blockchains could mean the technology is finally ready to scale to billions of users without compromising on decentralization or interoperability.

The finish line of this race – a fully connected, modular crypto ecosystem – is still ahead. But with Celestia, Avail, and EigenLayer pushing the boundaries, we are steadily moving towards an internet of blockchains that is as flexible and interconnected as the web itself, yet with the provable trust and security that blockchains promise. In the end, the winners of this race will likely be the users and developers, who may enjoy a blockchain experience that is faster, cheaper, and seamlessly interconnected, fulfilling many of the ideals that started this industry in the first place.