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

The air seems different this week, lighter and… bullish?

Greener times seem to be coming for those who survived the red from the last week.

This week only, we finally had the much-awaited launch of:

• Uniswap V4, redefining customizability within DeFi with hooks

• $BERA TGE and Berachain Mainnet Launch

In other news, MegaETH also announced their NFT collection, which we covered already in a post this week:

AI tokens all over have been hit pretty hard, but maybe it’s worth keeping track on how they’ve been performing post-dump, if you believe in the sector.

As every monday, we shared our thoughts in our AI segment:

Here’s what we have for you today:

• 📈 Price Action – Cautiously bullish this week

• 🗳️ Arbitrum Corner – Interoperability between Arbitrum and EVM chains

• 🐻 Bera Launch – A Special Segment with resources for the Berachain TGE

📈 PRICE ACTION

Gm frens!

There have been no new price developments on the weekly chart for BTC this time. We’re still going sideways above the rising 10/20 EMA, which makes me bullish overall.

Here’s what we can see (1W):

• Healthy uptrend

• Active momentum cycle

Last week we also zoomed in a little into this sideways price action and identified some first signs of loss of momentum. My bullish expectation was that price will liquidate some lows and continue its run to new ATHs. Unfortunately, we’re not quite seeing that and price continues seeking liquidity lower.

Here’s what we can see (4H):

• Sideways price action

• Range high liquidated

• Seeking more liquidity

This just means that whatever accumulation or distribution is happening here is not over yet. I will definitely wait for a clear, strong, and decisive move out of this range before entering any new trades. Trading in sideways chop is a recipe for disaster. Remember, you can outperform the market by just staying on the sidelines.

Trade responsibly and I’ll see y’all next time!

Not following what I’m talking about? Check out my quick cheatsheet to briefly explain how I approach a chart.

Courtesy of 0x_Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student

💙 INTENT-DRIVEN INTEROPERABILITY

In today's Arbitrum Corner, we dissect yesterday's big news.

In case you've missed it, Offchain Labs announced the creation of a universal intent engine to enable true interoperability between Arbitrum chains and other EVM chains.

The Problem - The Rising Need for Interop

"Interop" has been one of the hot topics lately and is a rising need, given the increasing number of network launches.

In January 2025, over 300k new tokens were launched.

Despite the rapid growth of new networks and tokens, blockchain ecosystems remain fragmented.

Users struggle with slow, expensive cross-chain transactions, liquidity is trapped within individual chains, and developers often lack the tooling to build seamless crosschain experiences.

This applies to new launches but especially to existing networks looking to scale.

Without a scalable interoperability solution, blockchain growth is hindered by poor UX, capital and liquidity inefficiencies, and security risks.

The Arbitrum Solution - Scaling Through Intents

OffchainLabs presents an interoperability solution that connects Arbitrum Chains and all other Ethereum L2s without sacrificing security or UX.

They define two phases with key targets:

1. End of Q1 25 - Intent-Based Interoperability: crosschain token swaps and transfers in less than 3 seconds.

2. End of Q3 25 - Abstracting Crosschain Operations: further improvements, including fast settlement, dev tooling, and exploring new EVM cross-chain and UX standards.

Before diving deeper into them, it is essential first to define what Offchain Labs believe to be the crucial properties of "interoperability", used as a basis for this interop solution for Arbitrum:

• Trustless: No new trust assumptions or risks should be introduced.

• Cheap: Fees should be kept low to ensure accessibility.

• Fast: Crosschain transactions should always be faster than L1 finality

• Accessible: clear path and tooling for developers to enable crosschain communication

The first phase of the plan, "Intent-Based Interoperability", will see the creation of a "universal intent engine" that users can prompt to execute crosschain transactions between Arbitrum and other EVM chains in less than 3 seconds.

The engine will evolve to allow users to stack transactions and initiate complex actions with simple prompts of their intentions.

This is surely cheap, as intent "swaps" are just bilateral transfers of funds and thus not impacted by slippage or MEV thanks to competition between intent solvers.

Solvers operate on the backend after users' intents are translated into quotes (size and price of the order) that they can execute.

The Arbitrum's universal intent engine will include 4 components:

• A Standardized Message Format for intents: to reduce friction for solvers, possibly including one or a combination of new ERC standards (ERC-7683, 7786, and 7841).

• A Standardized Broadcast Format: for trustless messages broadcast between Arbitrum and EVM chains.

• Fast Settlement and Reduced Fees: Fast Withdrawals, bridges, and native ZK integrations will reduce settlement time. In turn, this will improve the capital efficiency of solvers and allow faster rebalancing of funds for bridges.

• Universal Feed to Disseminate Intents across all Arbitrum chains, with plans to move to a trustless solution.

The development of these solutions will require upgrades at the application and protocol level of Arbitrum, as well as improvements in terms of UX, using EIP-7702 and account abstraction.

To bootstrap the engine and support solvers, the Arbitrum Foundation has announced a Solver Loan Program (SLP) through @nomial_io, allowing solvers to collateralize assets on Arbitrum to borrow assets crosschain to fill intents.

This program will be used to ensure solvers have the initial capital to establish a route between ETH and USDC.

Other protocols will then be able to create and establish routes between different tokens, using custom tokens for gas and governance.

This is a call to all Arbitrum protocols: Prepare for full EVM interoperability!

Here's a quick guide on how to do so:

• Use hooks to provide in-app paths to transfer assets between EVM chains (e.g. Across+, Router, Relay).

• Activate Fast Withdrawals (only valid for L2s not using Ethereum DA), making it easier for solvers to "service intents" without new trust assumptions.

• Introduce RPC diversity with at least two providers: sometimes, solvers won't provide their service to chains with a single provider.

• If you are a solver, you can decide to rebalance inventory using Everclear.

We hope you enjoyed this update, which included many exciting and upcoming developments that will significantly affect Arbitrum as we know it.

EVM interop is not a buzzword anymore. Now, it has a clear roadmap, which extends beyond Arbitrum and is set to benefit all EVM chains, with neutral crosschain standards and toolkits in the build for any developer.

GG to the chads at OffchainLabs.

Courtesy of Francesco - Co-Founder at Castle

🐻 BERA LAUNCH

So the bera with a chain on it, that wasn’t supposed to exist really did launch their chain in Q5 (Q4+1 for those bera’s who can’t do math).

$BERA is currently trading around ~$9 on several CEXs and Hyperliquid has already spun up a perp. The asset is already the 4th highest 24-hour volume on the platform, having only been open for just over 2 hours. But watch out if you’re longing, the annualized funding rate (the amount you pay to go long) is up over 6,000%.

This brings Berachain’s valuation to a cool $4.7B FDV, with surely room for growth, as many L1s (and an L2!) sit above.

Don’t know what to do on launch day? Check out this piece from Waj:

Missed the tokenomics update?

Want a refresher on everything Berachain and POL - check our Berachain Report:

A masterclass in farming on Berachain from Slappjakke:

A whole array of resources and tools to bookmark:

Last but not least, the Kaito airdrop for Berachain yapper was extremely fruitful, pointing to a new paradigm for community engagement and retroactive incentives:

Courtesy of Atomist - Founder at Castle

That’s it for this week - stay cautious in the markets, and don’t get liquidated because it’s plenty of opportunities out there.

And for the beras out there, enjoy this! You deserve it.

You truly held weed-smoking bear jpegs for 3 years.

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.