Well, that was a big move! Polychain Capital, one of the early backers of the modular blockchain network Celestia, just offloaded its remaining stake in the project. The Celestia Foundation announced on Thursday that it repurchased a hefty $62.5 million worth of TIA tokens from Polychain, marking a significant exit by one of its most prominent investors.
The Celestia Foundation has worked with Polychain Capital to assign Polychain’s entire remaining TIA holdings to new investors.
— Celestia 🦣 (@celestia) July 24, 2025
This month, the Foundation purchased 43,451,616.09 TIA from Polychain Capital for $62.5m. Polychain will shortly be undelegating their entire staked…
The tokens were repurchased at around $1.44 per TIA, which was pretty much in line with the price at the start of July. For those keeping track, TIA is hovering around $1.89 today, a far cry from its all-time high of nearly $20 in early 2024.
A Controversial Exit
Polychain's exit comes after a bit of drama in the crypto world. The venture firm had been slammed by some crypto investors for its large-scale sell-off of liquid TIA staking rewards, even though its initial token allocation remained locked. Some on-chain analysts estimated that Polychain may have sold up to $242 million worth of TIA since its token generation event. Of that, roughly $179 million was reportedly from staking reward addresses, all stemming from an initial $20 million investment across Celestia’s Series A and B fundraisers. Not exactly a small move!
Was bored so decided to do an update to Polychain $TIA sells
— 360 🐰🇵🇸 (@gtx360ti) July 2, 2025
Polychain has now dumped over $242 million worth of TIA since TGE
They still hold around ~44.7 mil TIA ($63.9 mil) https://t.co/SIBhMi4GzI pic.twitter.com/sXMLSNA0Q6
In response to all this heat, Celestia’s upcoming v4 mainnet upgrade, known as "Lotus," will bring some changes to how staking rewards are handled. The update, expected to land by the end of this month, will impose new rules: staking rewards will be locked in proportion to the unlock schedule of the underlying tokens. So, for example, if 50% of tokens are locked, only 50% of staking rewards can be claimed. Seems like Celestia is cleaning up a bit of its mess.
What’s Next for Celestia?
As for Polychain, they’re keeping quiet about their decision to exit, and Celestia's foundation is saying nothing at all. But with the new "Lotus" upgrade on the horizon, all eyes will be on how these changes affect Celestia's ecosystem and whether more investors will follow Polychain's lead. Stay tuned, folks!
Matvii Diadkov
Disclaimer: All materials on this site are for informational purposes only. None of the material should be interpreted as investment advice. Please note that despite the nature of much of the material created and hosted on this website, HODL FM is not a financial reference resource, and the opinions of authors and other contributors are their own and should not be taken as financial advice. If you require advice. HODL FM strongly recommends contacting a qualified industry professional.
