Catenaa, Friday, December 05, 2025- Astria Network has formally ended operations of its shared sequencer network, halting at block 15,360,577 just over a year after its mainnet launch. The modular platform, designed to reduce Layer 2 networks’ reliance on centralized sequencers, gradually wound down key functions in recent months.
Launched in 2023 on the Celestia data availability layer, Astria aimed to become the first decentralized shared sequencing layer for Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 rollups. The project raised $5.5 million in a 2023 seed round led by Maven 11, followed by a $12.5 million strategic round in 2024 from dba and Placeholder VC. It also developed an EVM rollup.
Co-founder Josh Bowen first signaled the shutdown in mid-November amid limited adoption and operational challenges. Earlier in the year, Astria ceased development of its Flame EVM and experienced an unexpected early devnet shutdown. The team did not provide a detailed explanation for the full project sunset, nor has it published a retrospective on its website or social channels.
Despite being positioned as a “Celestia-first” project, Astria also decommissioned its Celestia validator earlier this year. Its primary integration, the Flame EVM using the Astria Bridging Protocol, was rolled back. The network’s limited traction as a sequencer plugin and the challenges of securing widespread adoption appear to have influenced the decision to discontinue the experimental infrastructure.
Astria’s closure marks the end of one of the early attempts to create a decentralized sequencing solution for Layer 2 networks, highlighting the difficulties of scaling modular infrastructure projects in the blockchain ecosystem.
