Celestia co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam claimed Sunday on X that the core team remains committed and financially stable despite mounting accusations of misconduct, alleged insider profit-taking, and widespread community mistrust fueling significant price declines.
“Despite the FUD (getting more ridiculous by the day), all Celestia founders, early employees and core engineers are still here and working as hard as we did when Celestia started 5 years ago,” Al-Bassam wrote.
Al-Bassam asserted that large token drawdowns are a routine part of the industry and pointed to the project’s financial health, citing a reported $100 million-plus treasury providing a six-plus year operational runway.
The comments directly counter criticism leveled by tokenholders and independent researchers who allege that Celestia leadership and associated parties offloaded substantial TIA token holdings just prior to a sell-off that wiped out nearly 95% of the token’s value, leaving retail investors bearing the brunt.
Accusations of Insider Profit-Taking and Misconduct
Al-Bassam’s post appeared in response to a widely-viewed (over 200,000 views) analysis posted earlier on X by Startup Anthropologist. The thread accused the Celestia management of coordinated actions, including unlocking restricted tokens shortly before a market downturn.
“All c-suite had unlocks in early Oct. 24… Mustafa sold 25M+ in OTC, moved to Dubai,” the post alleged. Further claims suggested that executives received compensation for promoting the token while team members sold their shares under the table.
Token Unlock Timelines and Market Timing Criticized
Critics highlighted the team’s token unlock schedule as problematic. “Why do you have a token unlock that lasts 3/4 years?” questioned one X user, expressing skepticism about any project that phases out holdings over an extended period.
Ongoing Scrutiny of Market Strategy
Earlier this year, Celestia faced similar investor critiques. May investor Larry Sukernik described the project’s foundation as a cautionary tale about forcing market relevance through narrative rather than long-term utility.
Sukernik suggested Celestia’s market entry was poorly timed, wrongly focusing on rollups before they became central to blockchain scaling considerations.
Responding previously, Al-Bassam defended the strategic timing, noting Celestia’s early launch positioned it as the initial solution for rollups struggling with data availability needs.
Despite controlling what he termed “around 50% of the data availability (DA) throughput market,” Sukernik questioned whether the early market adoption translated to substantial economic power: “the problem was… there aren’t enough apps with PMF [product-market fit]… motivated to vertically integrate.”
As of late Tuesday, TIA was trading around $1.61, a modest 14% increase over the past 24 hours, though the token is off more than 92% from its $20.91 peak earlier last year.
