OnchainDB has introduced a micropayment-enabled database infrastructure built on Celestia, aiming to support a future in which artificial intelligence agents autonomously pay for data access at massive scale. The independent project is leveraging Celestia’s upcoming Fibre upgrade to transform every database query into a monetizable transaction, effectively turning application programming interface calls into onchain economic activity. This launch represents one of the first practical stress tests of Celestia’s modular blockchain design.
The timing aligns closely with Celestia’s recent announcement of the Fibre Blockspace protocol in mid-January 2026. During testing, Fibre reportedly reached throughput levels of one terabit per second across hundreds of nodes, far exceeding earlier performance targets. OnchainDB’s architecture assumes that this dramatic increase in bandwidth will significantly reduce data availability costs, making per-query micropayments economically feasible for the first time.
From Flat Fees to Pay-Per-Query Economics
OnchainDB proposes a shift away from traditional cloud pricing models that rely on fixed monthly fees. Instead, developers store application data on Celestia’s data availability layer and earn revenue whenever that data is accessed. Each read or write operation generates a small payment, with revenues currently split between application developers and the OnchainDB platform. This model allows developers to monetize data directly without building custom billing systems.
The project outlines several immediate use cases for this approach. Prediction markets could charge for access to historical pricing or odds data. Social platforms could generate revenue by allowing third parties to query social graph information. Analytics providers could sell aggregated insights on demand while avoiding the overhead of maintaining subscription infrastructure. These scenarios are positioned as early steps toward more automated data markets.
Targeting Machine-to-Machine Commerce
Beyond human-driven applications, OnchainDB is primarily designed for machine-to-machine interactions. The platform is positioned as a discovery and coordination layer for AI agents, enabling them to locate datasets, pay per query, combine information across multiple applications, and process results without human involvement. This vision centers on an automated data economy where software agents continuously exchange value for information.
Such a model is not viable on existing blockchain infrastructure. A database serving thousands of AI agents making frequent queries would generate transaction volumes far beyond what the current Ethereum blob capacity and fee structures can support. OnchainDB’s design assumes that blockchain costs per byte must become negligible before micropayments for data access can function at scale.
Everything is bound to become a market. https://t.co/q9bEWrEwUN
— OnchainDB (@onchaindb) February 3, 2026
Technical Architecture and Fibre’s Role
OnchainDB records every data write, including new entries and updates, directly on Celestia. Read operations are handled through indexed and materialized views that remain synchronized with the canonical on-chain state. This structure allows users to benefit from blockchain properties such as immutability and cryptographic verification, while relying on off-chain indexing layers to maintain high query performance.
This only works at Celestia Fibre scale.
A database serving thousands of AI agents per second generates massive transaction volume. On most infrastructure today, this is economically impossible. At 1 Tbps, the cost per byte drops low enough that fraction-of-a-cent payments can…
— Celestia (@celestia) February 3, 2026
If Fibre delivers throughput at its projected scale, even fractions of a cent paid for each database read could cover onchain costs while leaving room for profit. The project’s viability, therefore, depends heavily on Fibre’s real-world performance and adoption.
Market Context and Long-Term Implications
Despite the ambitious technical roadmap, Celestia’s token has faced market pressure in recent weeks, highlighting a disconnect between infrastructure development and current investor sentiment. Fibre is designed to support use cases that are still emerging, including automated agent payments, data access markets, and on-chain financial systems tied to traditional assets.
OnchainDB stands out as one of the earliest applications built explicitly for this high-bandwidth future. Its success depends on whether AI-driven data economies mature quickly enough to justify the underlying infrastructure. For developers, the project offers an early example of what large-scale data availability can enable. For market participants, it underscores that Celestia’s long-term value is closely tied to applications that may only become viable once the infrastructure itself is fully in place.
