GM frens, and welcome to another edition of The Castle Chronicle.

BTC went sideways this week, with a little boost from the FOMC meeting and with that, some altcoins popped off a bit. Were those valid opportunities though?

In addition, we also bring you a deeper look into gaming on Arbitrum, as they are participating on a massive stage at the most prominent gaming conference, the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Here’s what we got for you this week:

• 📈 Price Action – Sideways price action

• 🔍 Market Watch – Small bounces after major selloffs

• 🗳️ Arbitrum Corner – A small recap of all the games available to play in the Arbitrum booth

• 📖 Castle Recap – Catch up with all that we published this week

🔍️ MARKET WATCH

PRICE ACTION

BTC has definitely lost its momentum cycle by now, but that by itself doesn’t mean all that much. Whenever a momentum cycle fails, our 1st assumption should always be re-accumulation. Therefore my expectation here is for price to find a bottom and start going sideways with the expectation of a bullish continuation.

• Healthy uptrend

• Re-accumulation

While this is an overall bullish chart, it does not mean that we should look for bullish trades. The lower timeframes are currently bearish as the price is seeking liquidity on the downside, and while that is going on, the best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines. We want to see our lower timeframes line up with our higher timeframe bias/context and always have momentum on our sides.

The current market condition is simply not worth the risk. For all we know price can do anything at this point, there’s no edge in trading here.

Not following what I’m talking about? Check out my quick cheat sheet to understand how I approach a chart.

TOP PERFORMERS

Even though BTC is still in the midst of a selloff, the downward momentum has significantly slowed down, giving room for some altcoins to pop off. Does that mean we should trade these, though? Absolutely not.

For illustrative purposes, let’s take a look at one of the strongest performers this week - $CAKE. Even though $CAKE is up 50% on the week, but the pump happened in the middle of nowhere. All I can see is sideways chop without any clear directional cues. Catching this pump is guesswork and astrology at best. There’s no edge in such an approach, which is why it can’t perform consistently well over a big enough statistical sample of trades.

• Sideways price action

• No directional cues

So while it might seem that there’s a chance to catch some of these pumps, it really isn’t possible unless we’re gambling or have insider info (naughty naughty!). The best thing for us as traders is to wait for a better predictable market condition and look for opportunities then.

CAPITAL FLOW

Ethereum is seeing significant outflows this week, close to 300m$. Another outperformer is Berachain, consistently attracting capital week after week.

NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE

It looks like the major sell-off is over for now, and we’re seeing some bounces, with the Data narrative leading the charge. That being said, the majority of the data narrative is affected by a single entity—Bubblemaps. They released their own token, which is currently up over 100%.

Seeing that most of these aggregate bounces are around the 10% ish mark, I think it’s safe to say that the market is still very cautious, and no big money is flowing into any specific narrative just yet.

Courtesy of 0x_Vlad - Chief Male Astrologist at Castle Labs

💙 FOCUS ON ARBITRUM GAMING

This week our Arbitrum Corner is all about Gaming!

With over $250m allocated to the GCP fund, expectations for the development of gaming on Arbitrum are at an all-time high.

For this Arbitrum Corner we highlight one of the main events in this sector, the Game Developers Conference (GDC), which saw Arbitrum among its participants.

Participating on such an important stage, both in the gaming and RWA sectors, will give Arbitrum a massive headstart in breaking boundaries with Web2—as it was the main Web3 player participating in GDC.

Gaming on Arbitrum is more active than ever.

The living proof of this is Arbitrum’s stand at the GDC, where users could play different games:

Here’s a small recap of all the games available to play in the Arbitrum booth:

RIFTSTORM

A looter shooter ARPG with very interesting dynamics.

The game is already available for download on Steam. Here’s what it looks like:

THE LOST GLITCHES

A Strategic Multiplayer Card Game where you can make your own deck and play against friends (and enemies).

THE BEACON

A game powered by Treasure, The Beacon has been online on Arbitrum for a while. Users can enjoy RPG action with a medieval/knight vibe, we sure love that at Castle!

CAPTAIN LASERHAWK UNIVERSE

A retro shooter game developed by Ubisoft. We see many web3 games trying to break the mainstream - but what happens when existing gaming giants launch web3 games?

OTHERSIDE

The apes are now on Arbitrum and anyone can experience the Otherside metaverse

TOLLAN UNIVERSE

An upcoming action game with an open-world ecosystem.

Have a look at their demo:

L3E7

A location-based game unlocking interesting IRL dynamics.

PIRATE NATION

One of the most known Web3 games, a fully on-chain RPG backed by @a16z:

PLANET-X

Powered by Gallax: the world’s “biggest treasure hunt” is now open for beta pre-registrations:

CALIVERSE

A hyperrealistic metaverse built using @unreal engine 5

JIN ANOMALY

Bringing the cyberpunk vibes with an action RPG, is still in development.

Gaming on ARB is dead you say? Couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The conference is still ongoing so these are not all of the updates!

@Hunter will share all the alpha soon, for the moment it’s great to see the interest from more traditional game developers on how they can leverage Arbitrum to create a profitable and sustainable game faster than without.

Here’s him bringing us inside the conference for a behind-the-scenes sneak peak:

Expect more on gaming from our side!

Courtesy of Francesco - Co-founder at Castle Labs

📖 RECOMMENDED READS

In case you didn’t catch it, we released a HUGE report on MegaETH this week. Make sure to check it out!

And of course, let’s not forget about our weekly AI Dispatch

Another week in the books! We hope you enjoyed our newsletter and we’ll see you again next week!

In our newsletter, we may discuss projects or tokens in which we hold positions. While we aim to provide informative content, our views are not financial advice. Please conduct your research and consult professionals before making investment decisions. Crypto markets are volatile, and past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Invest responsibly, and be aware of the risks. Your capital is at risk, and we do not accept liability for any losses.