In a recent announcement on X, Celestia co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam shared some tough news: the project is letting go of some team members. This comes right after marking the second anniversary of Celestia's mainnet launch, where he reflected on the journey and the need to sharpen their focus.

If you're new to Celestia, it's a modular blockchain designed for data availability. Think of it as the backbone that helps other blockchains scale by handling data storage efficiently, allowing for things like rollups—essentially, layered networks that process transactions faster and cheaper.

Al-Bassam explained that over the past two years, the team has iterated a lot, learning from successes and missteps. Starting with a broad "build whatever" approach, they explored various ideas but realized that wasn't sustainable. Instead, they've zeroed in on a sweet spot: providing the infrastructure for high-performance onchain trading products.

Why this direction? Celestia stands out with super-low latency—down to 2 milliseconds using frameworks like Sovereign SDK—combined with 6-second finality (that's how quickly transactions are confirmed irreversibly) and massive bandwidth supporting around 200,000 transactions per second. No other platform matches this combo right now, making it ideal for trading venues where speed is everything.

Projects like Bullet, Hibachi, VEX, RISE, Ethereal, and XO Market are already building on Celestia, pioneering fast, efficient onchain markets. This shift means realigning the team to move quicker in this niche.

The layoffs aren't about financial trouble—Al-Bassam noted a healthy treasury—but about building the right crew for this new phase. He thanked those leaving for their contributions and promised support during the transition.

For the remaining team, the message is clear: "let's ship." Exciting updates are hinted at, so keep an eye on Celestia as they double down on dominating blockspace for high-speed trading.

This move highlights a broader trend in crypto: projects maturing and focusing on real product-market fit rather than trying to be everything to everyone. If you're into meme tokens, note that Celestia's tech could enable faster, cheaper platforms for trading viral coins, potentially boosting the meme ecosystem.

Check out the full thread on X for more details.