Celestia Launches Private Blockspace for Confidential DeFi Trading

Caroline Bishop
Jan 23, 2026 15:16

Celestia unveils Private Blockspace using verifiable encryption, letting perp exchanges hide positions while maintaining public auditability. Hibachi is first deployer.

Celestia has rolled out Private Blockspace, a new infrastructure layer that lets decentralized exchanges and institutional platforms keep sensitive trading data hidden while still proving everything checks out publicly. The modular blockchain network announced the feature on January 23, positioning it as a fix for DeFi’s uncomfortable tradeoff between transparency and operational security.

TIA trades at $0.46 following the announcement, down 3.69% over 24 hours amid broader weakness that saw the token drop 12.6% earlier this week.

What Private Blockspace Actually Does

Here’s the problem it solves: perpetual exchanges, orderbooks, and institutional rails handle data that can’t be public. Positions, balances, liquidation thresholds, routing logic—all of it becomes a target when visible on-chain. But hiding this data traditionally meant trusting operators, which defeats the purpose of being on-chain in the first place.

Private Blockspace uses something called Verifiable Encryption. Networks publish encrypted state to Celestia, and anyone can verify the data exists and follows protocol rules without seeing what’s inside. Think of it as proving you have a valid passport without showing your address.

The technical implementation runs encryption inside a zkVM, proving specific cryptographic parameters were used while attaching “anchors” that attest to properties of the unencrypted data. Users can verify a Merkle proof exists with a specific root without decrypting anything.

Hibachi Goes Live First

Perps exchange Hibachi is already using Private Blockspace in production—the first independent deployment. The platform publishes verifiably encrypted exchange state to Celestia, keeping balances and positions private while making data availability publicly checkable.

Celestia is working toward enabling users to recover funds from encrypted exchange state if an operator disappears. An “account-centric model” would let users define their own encryption keys, enforce that all account data was published, and potentially force withdrawals on-chain without operator cooperation.

Throughput Claims

The announcement references Celestia’s current 5.3 MB/s blockspace capacity and mentions Fibre Blockspace—launched January 14—is designed for 1 Tb/s throughput under target conditions. That’s a significant claim for privacy-preserving infrastructure, though production performance at scale remains unproven.

Beyond exchanges, Celestia pitches Private Blockspace for trust-minimized data marketplaces. Sellers could publish encrypted data, buyers verify availability before payment, with neither party needing an intermediary.

For traders watching TIA, this represents Celestia’s push to capture institutional DeFi infrastructure—a potentially large market if execution matches the pitch. The token’s recent 12.6% decline suggests the market wants proof before pricing in new utility.

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