Remember when you had to buy a whole new iPhone just because the battery was dying? That's basically how blockchains worked until recently. Everything was welded together – if one part needed an upgrade, tough luck, you're replacing the whole thing. Then modular blockchains showed up and said, "What if we didn't do it that way?"
Why Everyone's Suddenly Talking About Going Modular
Here's the thing about blockchains – they're trying to do three jobs at once. They need to agree on what happened (consensus), actually do the computing (execution), and keep all the receipts (data storage). It's a lot, honestly.
Celestia, Avail, and EigenDA looked at this mess and decided to focus on just one thing: being really, really good at storing data. They're basically the Dropbox of crypto, except way more complicated and somehow simpler at the same time.
Each one runs their storage operation differently, and the differences actually matter if you're building anything in this space.
Celestia: Your Phone Is Now a Blockchain Node
This is wild – Celestia lets you help run the network from your phone. Not some special crypto phone, just your regular iPhone or Android. Traditional blockchains would laugh at this idea, but Celestia pulled it off.
How? They don't make everyone check everything. Instead, imagine a massive jigsaw puzzle where everyone just checks if their little corner piece fits. Multiply that by thousands of people, and boom – the whole puzzle gets verified without anyone seeing the complete picture.
The code to use it? Stupidly simple:
// Seriously, this is it
const gameData = {
player: "John Doe",
score: 15000,
level: 5
};
await celestia.submit("my-game", gameData);
console.log("Done!");
I've set up test nodes, and it literally takes one command. One! Coming from the days of wrestling with Bitcoin nodes, this feels like cheating.
By next year, they want to hit 1GB per second. For context, that's "download a full movie in 10 seconds" fast. Projects like Aevo are already using it, which tells you something about where smart money is betting.
Oh, and TIA token holders get to vote on stuff without locking up their tokens. Finally, someone figured out governance doesn't need to be painful.
Avail: The Swiss Army Knife Nobody Saw Coming
Avail is what happens when the Polygon founder decides to build something new. It's not just storage – it's trying to be the connecting tissue between all these different blockchains that refuse to talk to each other.
You know how annoying it is managing different apps across iPhone and Android? Avail basically said "what if you didn't have to pick?" It handles Ethereum stuff, Polygon stuff, whatever-chain-launches-next-week stuff, all in one place.
The crazy part? They're talking about 10GB blocks. That's not a typo. Ten gigabytes. In one block. Your entire WhatsApp history probably isn't that big.
Living in Seoul, where everyone's using three different blockchain apps for different things (KakaoTalk's Klaytn for one thing, Ethereum for DeFi, some random L2 for gaming), this actually solves real problems. My developer friends here are excited because they don't have to pick winners anymore – just support everything through Avail.
Next year they're going full DAO, meaning the community runs everything. Not "community" in the fake corporate way, but actual token holders making actual decisions. Their validator selection even has built-in anti-whale tech using something called the Phragmén algorithm. (Yes, I had to Google how to spell that.)
EigenDA: When You Absolutely Need It Yesterday
EigenDA doesn't mess around. 100MB per second. That's more than 12 times what Visa processes globally. Let that sink in.
They built on top of Ethereum, which is smart – why rebuild security when you can borrow Ethereum's? It's like putting your valuables in the same vault banks use.
The clever bit is how they store data. They chop it into pieces and scatter them around. Lose some pieces? No problem, math magic (Reed-Solomon coding) rebuilds everything from what's left. Old-school IT folks will recognize this from RAID arrays.
You can even dial security up or down. Gaming data? 60% consensus is fine, keep it fast and cheap. Financial records? Crank it to 90%, better safe than sorry.
Come 2025, they're launching EigenCloud – imagine AWS but for blockchain stuff. The big corporations in Gangnam are already sniffing around this. When Korean chaebols start paying attention, you know something's up.
Right now 98 operators run it. Hit 10,000 operators and theoretically you're looking at 1GB per second. Theoretically.
The Part Where I Actually Used These Things
Setting Things Up
Celestia is stupid easy. This actually works:
# Not kidding, this is all of it
curl -s https://celestia.sh | bash
celestia light start --p2p.network mocha
I got my first rollup running during a coffee break. The tutorials work, the tools work, everything just... works.
Avail has more bells and whistles, so more setup. The basics are smooth, but once you start playing with Nexus (cross-chain messaging) or Fusion (security stuff), block out an afternoon. Worth it though – the features are genuinely powerful once you get them running.
EigenDA is API-based. Send data to the Disperser, get it back from the Retriever. You need to know some coding, but their docs don't assume you have a PhD, which is refreshing.
What It Costs
Celestia only takes TIA tokens. When TIA moons, your costs moon. But more users supposedly means better efficiency, so maybe it evens out? We'll see.
Avail takes multiple tokens, because flexibility. Smart move.
EigenDA is the most corporate-friendly – pay in ETH, EIGEN, your own token, whatever. Big users can even negotiate deals. Very "enterprise sales."
So Which One Do You Actually Pick?
Go Celestia if: You're building something self-contained like an NFT project or game. Perfect for "let's test this idea" scenarios. The community vibe is strong here – very "we're all building the future together."
Go Avail if: You're playing in multiple chains. DeFi protocols love this because users jump chains constantly. Lens Protocol picked Avail because they knew their users wouldn't stick to one chain. Smart.
Go EigenDA if: Speed is everything. Online games, IoT stuff, anything real-time. Also if you need that "built on Ethereum" credibility. Watching Korean gaming companies evaluate these options, EigenDA's speed makes CFOs actually smile.
What Happens Next
2025 is shaping up to be interesting. Celestia wants to be the WordPress of blockchains – so easy your grandma could spin one up. Avail's becoming the everything platform. EigenDA's chasing Web2 speeds to pull in traditional companies.
They're not really competing though. Different tools for different jobs. Android and iOS both exist, right?
Here in Seoul, where crypto adoption happens at warp speed, I'm seeing companies experiment with all three. The winner isn't one platform – it's modularity itself. We spent years trying to build perfect monolithic blockchains. Turns out, perfect was the enemy of good enough.
The real insight? Blockchain infrastructure is getting boring, and that's exactly what we need. When infrastructure becomes boring, that's when interesting applications get built on top.
Choose based on your actual needs, not hype. Check the community (are people actually building or just trading tokens?), test the tools (do they work or just promise to work "soon"?), and think about where you'll be in two years.
Welcome to modular blockchains. It's messier than the old way, but it actually works.
Disclaimer: This article is written for the purpose of providing general information about blockchain and distributed ledger technology. It is not a recommendation or advice for any financial decision-making, including investment, buying, or selling. The content of this article represents personal opinions only and does not substitute for legal or financial advice. Please make careful judgments regarding investments in cryptocurrencies and digital assets at your own responsibility.