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Ethena, Securitize Target Q2 Mainnet Launch for RWA-Focused Blockchain, Tap Arbitrum, Celestia

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ethena and tokenization firm Securitize said they will use part of Arbitrum’s tech and data availability network Celestia for their real-world asset focused, Ethereum-compatible blockchain, aiming to launch mainnet in the second quarter of this year.

The Converge chain is setting out to have fast blocktimes, allowing users to pay gas fees through Ethena’s USDe and USDtb, while creating security and guardrails via its Converge Validator Network, the two protocols behind the project explained in a tech update shared with CoinDesk.

“The idea is that we go on a testnet very soon, in the next few weeks, because we’ve already been working on this for a while,” Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, said in an exclusive interview with CoinDesk. “Then, the mainnet: the goal is to do it before the end of Q2.”

The exact timing of the public rollout also depends on third-party integrations such as Anchorage for custody support, Fireblocks for key management and other DeFi apps the project partnered with, Domingo added.

Connecting RWA and DeFi

Converge, unveiled last month, aims to connect the rapidly growing tokenized real-world assets (RWA) sector with the DeFi space, building on existing ecosystems around Ethena and Securitize and their multi billion dollar worth of assets.

Ethena has quickly become a DeFi powerhouse, spearheading the yield-bearing stablecoin trend with its $5 billion “synthetic dollar” token USDe. Meanwhile, Securitize issues nearly $4 billion in tokenized assets by traditional finance giants like Apollo and Hamilton Lane and BlackRock’s blockchain-based money market fund token BUIDL. The latter is also the key backing asset of Ethena’s $1.4 billion USDtb stablecoin.

“Converge’s ambitious vision of onboarding tens of billions of institutional capital on-chain requires providing users with high performance and elevated security guarantees,” Guy Young, founder of development firm Ethena Labs, said in a statement.

To achieve that lofty goal, the Converge chain’s performance relies on a custom sequencer for an Arbitrum-powered blockchain, while using Celestia as the data availability layer underneath it, according to the tech update shared with CoinDesk. A sequencer is a key piece of blockchain infrastructure that compiles transactions from layer-2 networks and posts them back to the layer-1 network.

Data availability layers, like Celestia, aim to bring down the downloading and storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. The combination of Conduit’s G2 sequencer, as well as the use of Arbitrum and Celestia’s tech is supposed “to push the boundaries of what level of throughput is possible on EVM-based networks,” the team wrote.

The network will use Ethena’s USDe and USDtb as gas tokens to pay for transaction costs across the network. Both tokens are designed with a price anchored to $1, allowing easier accounting for transaction costs, the team wrote.

Converge will also support both permissionless and permissioned applications operating side by side. Developers can deploy permissionless DeFi apps freely, while institutional issuers such as Securitize can create permissioned environments for compliant real-world asset products.

In addition, the Converge Validator Network (CVN) is supposed to provide the foundations of the network’s security, by essentially acting as the chain’s security council. The CVN will have the ability to interfere during emergencies like when funds are at risk, perform circuit breakers to pause user-activity if there are serious bugs, as well as review important governance proposals.

In order to participate in the CVN, validators must stake ENA, Ethena’s governance token. According to the team, the CVN will go live shortly after mainnet launches.

“Technical breakthroughs on this initiative will drive asymmetric product outcomes for Converge, and thus growth in USDe, USDtb and other Ethena and Securitize products,” Young said.

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Noble’s New ‘AppLayer’ Lets Developers Build Stablecoin Tools on Celestia

Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing “AppLayer,” an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure.

Noble’s AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar.

AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains.

The Noble team stated in a press release viewed by CoinDesk that it will launch its Ethereum-compatible AppLayer rollup in the third quarter of 2025.

“Noble plans to unlock its cross-ecosystem potential as EVM applications continue to seek reliable and seamless access to native stablecoin liquidity,” the team wrote. “Noble’s AppLayer will be seamlessly integrated with a number of blue chip DeFi projects born in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Stablecoins have received considerable attention in recent weeks, with the U.S. Congress preparing significant stablecoin legislation later this year. Entities including President Trump’s World-Liberty Financial, banking giant Fidelity, and the U.S. state of Wyoming have also expressed plans to create their own stablecoins.

Noble launched in March 2023 as an application-specific blockchain, or “appchain,” purpose-built for stablecoin issuance within the Cosmos ecosystem. Initially, it aimed to expand liquidity Cosmos by enabling native asset issuance through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, which is the technology used by Cosmos-based blockchains to transfer assets and other data.

Over time, Noble has extended its reach beyond Cosmos, integrating with Ethereum and other ecosystems to facilitate quick stablecoin transfers. Additionally, in March, Noble introduced USDN, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills.

“Building stablecoin issuance infrastructure over the past two years has given us a deep appreciation for the transformative potential of stablecoins to onboard the world to crypto,” said Jelena Djuric, co-founder and CEO at Noble, in the press release. “The Noble AppLayer, built with Celestia’s technology underneath, finally gives builders the freedom to build highly scalable and performant stablecoin-native applications.”

Read more: How a Ph.D. Student’s Research Paper Turned Celestia Into $345M Blockchain Project Overnight

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Noble’s New ‘AppLayer’ Lets Developers Build Stablecoin Tools on Celestia

Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing “AppLayer,” an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure.

Noble’s AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar.

AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains.

The Noble team stated in a press release viewed by CoinDesk that it will launch its Ethereum-compatible AppLayer rollup in the third quarter of 2025.

“Noble plans to unlock its cross-ecosystem potential as EVM applications continue to seek reliable and seamless access to native stablecoin liquidity,” the team wrote. “Noble’s AppLayer will be seamlessly integrated with a number of blue chip DeFi projects born in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Stablecoins have received considerable attention in recent weeks, with the U.S. Congress preparing significant stablecoin legislation later this year. Entities including President Trump’s World-Liberty Financial, banking giant Fidelity, and the U.S. state of Wyoming have also expressed plans to create their own stablecoins.

Noble launched in March 2023 as an application-specific blockchain, or “appchain,” purpose-built for stablecoin issuance within the Cosmos ecosystem. Initially, it aimed to expand liquidity Cosmos by enabling native asset issuance through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, which is the technology used by Cosmos-based blockchains to transfer assets and other data.

Over time, Noble has extended its reach beyond Cosmos, integrating with Ethereum and other ecosystems to facilitate quick stablecoin transfers. Additionally, in March, Noble introduced USDN, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills.

“Building stablecoin issuance infrastructure over the past two years has given us a deep appreciation for the transformative potential of stablecoins to onboard the world to crypto,” said Jelena Djuric, co-founder and CEO at Noble, in the press release. “The Noble AppLayer, built with Celestia’s technology underneath, finally gives builders the freedom to build highly scalable and performant stablecoin-native applications.”

Read more: How a Ph.D. Student’s Research Paper Turned Celestia Into $345M Blockchain Project Overnight

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Celestia (TIA) Set For Major Breakout? Top OTC Exec Warns Of Supply Shock

In an analysis shared on X, Taran Sabharwal, CEO of Stix—a leading OTC trading platform specializing in liquidity solutions for private crypto transactions—provided insights into the upcoming unlock dynamics of the Celestia (TIA) token scheduled for October 31, 2024. His assessment suggests that the market may be underestimating the potential impact on TIA’s price action heading into November.

Why Celestia (TIA) Could Be A Buy

“TIA – an OTC story,” Sabharwal began. “We used on-chain data (via @celenium_io API) to judge exactly how the unlock dynamics may shape TIA’s PA going into Nov. The results are in the table above. We’ve summarized that a total of 92.3M TIA will be liquid post unlock, which would act as the upper bound of overall spot selling pressure.”

Interestingly, this figure accounts for less than 50% of the total cliff unlocks, suggesting that the actual sell pressure may be only half of what the market has been anticipating. Sabharwal highlighted that the real increase in circulating supply compared to the current supply indicates a 41.8% dilution.

A significant factor in this dynamic is the activity of OTC buyers who acquired large amounts of the initial unlock and hedged on perpetual futures, causing open interest to surge in recent months. “We expect many of these shorts to continue winding down, partially negating the spot-selling pressure,” he explained. This unwinding could serve as a bullish signal for spot buyers due to the potential reset in funding rates.

Sabharwal’s analysis included several key assumptions. OTC round buyers possess an 11 million TIA cliff unlock, included in the non-staked token category since these tokens originated from treasury wallets not tagged on the blockchain explorer. His team mapped a total of 292 vesting wallets but acknowledged some gaps, which were also included in the non-staked category.

Reflecting on TIA’s OTC history on Stix, Sabharwal observed that Celestia has been one of the most actively traded assets in the OTC market this cycle. Early in the cycle, it offered an attractive opportunity for directional buyers, while sellers were eager to realize large unrealized profits without expecting an imminent bull market in Q3 2023.

He continued: “In Q1 2024, the bull had matured and TIA rallied to $20+. OTC activity was minimal here as sellers didn’t want to take larger discounts (40+%) and buyers didn’t want to bid higher than the $8.5 ceiling. We saw almost no activity as sellers were ‘feeling’ rich and wanted to stay risk-on, despite having the opportunity to realize 100-800x on their investments.”

The dynamics shifted when TIA fell below $5. This was around the time when the Celestia Foundation started raising its OTC round of $100M at $3. “The vesting for buyers was the same as those of private investors—33% unlock on Oct 31 2024 (<2 months from the round) and a 12-month linear unlock,” Sabharwal noted.

During the third and fourth quarters of 2024, aggressive OTC trading activity resumed, with sellers offloading various positions. Stix alone facilitated approximately $60 million in TIA volume since July, suggesting that total trading volume could exceed $80 million across all liquidity channels, assuming Stix holds a 75% market share in the OTC space.

Summing up his analysis, Sabharwal concluded: “TLDR: Shorts will keep unwinding into the unlock and funding rates may reset to 0 or positive. People who missed the 9th October unstaking deadline may also have unstaked during October, causing further spot supply (ready to be sold) going into November. Either way, the supply shock is massive and it’s been the most broadcasted unlock of this cycle. That, coupled with suppressing OTC discounts, may create a lot of action for the coin.”

Renowned crypto analyst Will Clemente also weighed in on the developments via X: “Great piece on $TIA OTC activity by Taran from Stix. TLDR: OTC discount to spot in the private market has compressed over the last year, showing growing demand into the unlock. Stix alone has done $60mm in TIA OTC volume since July.”

Clemente added his perspective on the potential market impact: “I think this BTC price action has further slid the probability of Thursday’s TIA unlock being bearish towards ‘no’. 6 months of reaccumulation after 80% drawdown, ton of OTC volume, most widely telegraphed unlock in crypto history, 9 figs short, BTC nearing ATHs. Am long rn.”

At press time, TIA traded at $5.00.

Celestia TIA price

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Celestia (TIA) Leads Crypto Market With 16% Surge, Will It Hit $7 This Month?

Celestia (TIA) has displayed a remarkable performance over the week, swiftly recovering from the early October crash. The token is now leading the crypto market’s recovery in the daily timeframe, suggesting a possible continuation of its bullish momentum before the month ends.

Celestia Leads The Crypto Market

TIA, the native token of modular blockchain Celestia, has seen a 7.3% surge in the past week. The cryptocurrency recovered from the October 3 lows, moving from the $4.5 support level to trade above the $5 mark this Friday.

Celestia has been on a downtrend since hitting its March all-time high (ATH), suffering a brutal 80% correction from $20 to $4 in the past six months. September’s retrace dragged TIA below the $4 mark, registering its lowest price since early November 2023.

However, the token’s Q3 retraces didn’t alarm many investors who considered Celestia’s on-chain developments a potential bullish sign. Since then, the cryptocurrency has seen a 40.1% monthly increase, fueling the bullish sentiment among the community.

Today, TIA registered eight hourly consecutive green candles, propelling the price 14% from the $4.9 zone to the $5.6 resistance level before retracing to the $5.5 mark. Throughout the morning, the token has hovered between $5.50-$5.55, recording a 16.3% surge in the past 24 hours.

This performance crowned Celestia as the largest gainer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, only followed by Worldcoin (WLD), Dogwifhat (WIF), and Popcat (POPCAT).

Is A Big Move Coming For TIA?

Several market watchers note Celetia’s performance, suggesting that the cryptocurrency’s chart hints a breakout may be around the corner. To crypto analyst Yuriy, TIA’s performance indicates a “big move is coming,” remarking that its open interest (OI) significantly increased in the past month.

Meanwhile, crypto analyst Poseidon noted TIA’s 80% correction, asserting that we might be near the end of the “brutal downside trend.” To the analyst, the price’s 4-month range between $4-$7 looks like a potential bottom, which could signify the ongoing bullish momentum will continue.

However, Poseidon asserted that TIA must reclaim the 50-day and 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) to call the trend shift. Similarly, crypto trader Bluntz previously suggested that the cryptocurrency had bottomed, displaying an inverted head and shoulders pattern after the weekly recovery.

Youtuber Crypto Jack noted that Celestia’s bounce from the $4.5 support zone targets the upper trendline of its 4-month consolidation range. To the analyst, the bullish momentum could send TIA above the $7 resistance level this month.

Other analysts called it one of “the most tempting altcoins to buy,” setting targets above $10 for Celestia. Nonetheless, some noted that the upcoming token unlocks, set to start on October 30, could negatively impact TIA’s price.

Celestia, TIA, TIAUSDT

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EigenLayer Founder Reiterates Support For Ethereum, Why Is ETH Struggling?

Despite scalability and high gas fees facing Ethereum, the founder of EigenLayer, a liquidity restaking platform, insists the network is superior, especially against Solana. Solana is the third most valuable smart contracts platform, trailing Ethereum and the BNB Chain. Over the years since launching, it has been gulping up more market share from Ethereum, cementing its position.

Is Ethereum Superior To Solana?

While the prominence of Solana is evident, Sreeram Kannan, the founder of EigenLayer, argued in a post on X that Solana prioritizes low latency and global node synchronization over other core features.

On the other hand, Ethereum took a different approach, emphasizing the need for stability and decentralization. Accordingly, in Kannan’s view, the first smart contracts platform offers a more comprehensive solution than its competitor. Currently, EigenLayer manages over $12 billion worth of assets on Ethereum, according to DeFiLlama.

EigenLayer TVL | Source: DeFiLlama

Although Kannan acknowledges the efficiency of Solana, the founder nonetheless picks out some limitations now that the platform is building a global state machine. At the top of the list is the blockchain’s sacrifice of programmability and verifiability.  

Meanwhile, the EigenLayer lead thinks Ethereum is excelling, especially on performance, thanks in part to the success of rollups and the resulting wild adoption. This off-chain solution provides instant confirmation and is more performant than web2 applications.

At the same time, Ethereum is programmable, enabling EigenLayer to add more features like an arbitrary decentralization of verifiable tasks. As a result, the liquidity restaking platform, Kannan adds, has enabled cloud-scale programmability.

Layer-2 Platforms Thriving: Why Is ETH Struggling?

The co-founder of Celestia, Mustafa Al-Bassam, also appreciates what Ethereum brings to the table and is absent or underdeveloped in other networks. In a post on X, Al-Bassam said the first smart contracts platform is “underrated.”

Specifically, the co-founder lauded the thriving rollup ecosystem in Ethereum, saying it is “by far the largest and most successful.” As of September 30, L2Beat data shows that the layer-2 ecosystem in Ethereum manages over $38 billion, with Arbitrum and Base among the largest platforms.

Ethereum layer-2 TVL | Source: L2Beat

Even as Base and other Ethereum layer-2 platforms draw activity, ETH, the native currency, is struggling for momentum. The daily chart shows bulls have yet to break above $2,800, although support remains at $2,400.

Ethereum price trending sideways on the daily chart | Source: ETHUSDT on Binance, TradingView

Dwindling upside momentum has been partly blamed on the proliferation of layer-2 scaling solutions. The network becomes inflationary as more activity is re-routed off-chain, and enhancements like Dencun are activated to make layer-2 transactions even cheaper. Looking at Ultra Sound Money, fewer ETH are not being torched.

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Celestia Plans For 1 GB Blocks For Scaling: Why Are TIA Holders Worried?

Celestia, a top network and one of the few modular blockchains, is building. Less than a year after transiting to the mainnet after months of testing, the platform is taking bold steps to scale the base layer and further boost data availability.

Celestia Plans For 1 GB Blocks For Scaling

In a recent announcement, the platform’s core developers said it was preparing for the next phase, which will see the blockchain introduce 1 GB blocks. The decision to unleash 1 GB blocks will be a major move to scale on-chain and push throughput even higher.

It will only make sense. Celestia uses a modular architecture that allows the network to scale. Unlike Ethereum, which is struggling to scale on-chain and heavily reliant on off-chain platforms like Base and StarkNet, Celestia remains scalable and flexible, circumventing challenges legacy networks encounter.

With 1GB blocks and scaling increased, Celestia said developers would be free to build whatever they wish. Exemplifying progress made by modern chains, developers are not confined to deploying smart contracts using a single programming language like struggles to scale on-chain, which is Solidity or Rust. Instead, they can choose what they are comfortable with.

To achieve the 1 GB blocks, Celestia plans to introduce innovations such as content-addressable mempools and compact blocks. Moreover, plans will be made to deploy internally sharding nodes and improve its data availability sampling protocol.

TIA Down 80%, Will The Supply Uptick Fast-Track The Dump?

Impressive as this could be, TIA, the native currency, has been on a free fall. Price data shows that bears have been in control after prices soared to as high as $21 in February, forcing the coin down by over 80%.

Celestia price trending downward on the daily chart | Source: TIAUSDT on Binance, TradingView

At spot rates, the coin remains under intense selling pressure. If anything, sellers could unwind all progress made after listing on Binance in early November.

The immediate concern is the upcoming token unlock set for October 30. Usually, token unlocks are considered bearish due to the expected spike in supply.

TIA unlocking schedule | Source: @Token_Unlocks via X

Today, the platform will release 175 million TIA or 16.5% of the total supply. Afterward, a daily release of 1 million TIA will be from November 1.

By next year, Token Unlocks, a monitoring platform, projects that TIA’s supply will be up by nearly 4X. If demand remains low, as is currently the case, prices could plunge below November 2023 lows due to the deluge in supply.

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TIA Down 23% In A Week, As Investors Eye New On-Chain Projects

With the crypto market eyeing to end August on a sour note, the altcoin sector saw more pain in the short term after the broader market dipped in the past 24 hours. This led to altcoins like TIA facing significant losses on all timeframes.

According to CoinGecko, TIA saw 23% in losses since last week, becoming one of the biggest losers since the market’s correction phase began. Despite the token’s underperformance, August was a great month for on-chain growth for Celestia. The only question now is whether investors are considering these developments to prince-in TIA in the long term. 

OurNetwork Modular Ecosystem Review Reveals Quiet Build-Up On Celestia

OurNetwork’s official X account posted about its recent overview of the Modular ecosystem which Celestia is a part of. It revealed several key developments that show the ecosystem has been gathering momentum since the start of August. 

According to OurNetwork’s official blog post, although the modular sector of crypto faced some resistance due to its chain fragmentation problem, developments on chain abstraction by over 80 teams from different protocols and chains led to better user experience on-chain.

Celestia leads the entire sector by a wide margin. It shows that the platform secured 44% of the total market share of data on data availability providers. This shows Celestia as a major player in the Modular sector.

The platform’s niche of providing EVM blockchains with the infrastructure to verify data without downloading entire blocks is the main reason for Celestia’s jump in market share. From May 29th until August 28th, Celestia has kept pace chasing Ethereum’s position in the data availability niche.

Time will tell whether the platform will usurp Ethereum as the prime data availability layer for EVM blockchains, but investor confidence in Celestia might not be in the position for recovery of TIA. 

$4.6 Breakthrough Imminent But Rejection’s Still A Possibility 

As of writing, the token is on the path of breaking through the $4.6 ceiling in the short term despite the market sentiment still flashing bearish. With the majority of the market still trying to recover from the disastrous dip, TIA’s potential breakthrough might be rejected. 

The relative strength index (RSI) shows that there is a slight dip in bullish momentum, but a flip may occur in the coming days as market volatility slows down. TIA’s significant correlation with Bitcoin will also play a part in the coming rally. Once BTC returns to $60k in the long term, we might see a possible retest of $5 soon; that is if the market flips bullish which may occur later in early or mid-September. 

Featured image from RockX, chart from TradingView