Celestia co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam has firmly dismissed recent FUD surrounding geopolitical tensions and allegations of misconduct by the core team. Addressing community concerns and criticism, he emphasized that the project remains financially robust with a $100 million war chest and a runway exceeding six years to withstand potential market and geopolitical challenges.
Recent geopolitical events, including U.S. foreign policy issues and the Israel-Iran conflict, caused price pressure on the Celestia (TIA) token, which saw a significant drawdown of over 90% in 2024. Despite this, Al-Bassam clarified that the core founders, early employees, and engineers remain fully committed and active since Celestia’s inception five years ago.
Al-Bassam’s statements respond to allegations from independent researchers and tokenholders accusing the team of insider profit-taking and coordinated financial misconduct, including large token sales by executives and questionable token unlock schedules. While the sentiment in the community is skeptical, technical indicators for TIA show early signs of potential bullish reversals, with support holding at key levels and momentum indicators turning positive.
In addition, the rise of competing ecosystems such as Solana’s Solaxy Layer-2 scaling solution introduces new challenges within the broader Layer-1 and data availability market. Despite criticism concerning market traction and timing, Celestia claims to have secured about 50% market share in data availability throughput and hosts over 30 rollups, positioning itself as a leading alternative data availability solution.
