Welcome to Edition 117 of The Castle Chronicle.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• 🔍 Market Watch – Price action & Relevant metrics across sectors and assets

• 📖 Recommended Reads – The best reads you might have missed

•  🧱 Founder Corner - Dan from Rysk

• 💚 HypeVM Farming - CL with some farming opportunities on the HL ecosystem

• 🏰 Castle Reads - All of Castle’s research you might have missed

📈 PRICE ACTION

Finally, some interesting directional cues! After weeks if sideways BTC has finally broken higher from its accumulation range. So far, this is developing exactly as expected in line with the anticipated re-accumulation.

• Healthy uptrend

• Re-accumulation

This is just the 1st confirmation step for continuation, as price still needs to prove itself a bit more on the lower timeframes, but so far it’s doing all the right things! What I want to see now is a confirmed re-accumulation on the daily chart and then I’ll be happy to follow this thing long.

The reason I’m waiting for a break higher after this push is simple - I want to rule out re-distribution. There is still a very good chance that there isn’t enough juice in this pump and it simply dies off. With a confirmed re-accumulation our chances are much better.

TOP PERFORMERS

With BTC pumping it is expected to see rising tides across the entire crypto market. It should come as no surprise that many cryptos are seeing big green numbers, outperforming BTC. Now is a good time to pay attention to relatively stronger coins and IF BTC confirms a re-accumulation, we can start betting on them.

BTC FEAR AND GREED INDEX

Just a few weeks ago, we were at super low sentiment levels, yet now we’re slowly creeping into the greed territory. Emotions are truly a spectacle in the market.

That being said, I think this index provides the most value at its extremes - the upper and lower 10%. That’s when emotions take over completely and people make reckless decisions. Compared to that we’re still fairly neutral.

CAPITAL FLOW

Nothing stands out to me in regards to capital flow. We can see the regular high activity within Ethereum and slightly higher outflow from Arbitrum this week. Same old, same old.

NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE

Every single narrative is in the green this week with AI-Agents leading the charge up +35% on average. We can see coins like $ZEREBRO up +260%, $GRIFFAIN +87%, and $LUNA +55%. These are spectacular bounces on the slightest signs of strength from BTC. If BTC should continue its bullish run I’d say AI-Agents are definitely a narrative worth watching!

This week has been very refreshing for the bulls and gives us some hope. It is still a little bit too early for me to put my “RISK ON” pants on, but if things continue in this fashion, I’ll be changed in no time. Until then -

Risk responsibly, and I’ll see y’all next time!

🧱 FOUNDER CORNER: Startups Die When They Stop Believing by Dan from Rysk

WHY I’M WRITING THIS

I’m Dan, founder of Rysk, a DeFi protocol focused on structured products and options.

I started The Founder Corner because building in crypto, especially in DeFi, is hard. 

But it’s also exciting. 

It tests you. Forces you to grow. Forces you to confront yourself. 

We need more people building, and to get there, we need to tell the truth about what the journey actually looks like, without sugar coating it. 

What it feels like when it’s not going well, when no one’s watching, when you’re not sure if you’re going to make it.

Let me tell you about my 2024.

THE BOTTOM OF RYSK

Early that year, Rysk was one of the top options protocols on Arbitrum. 

We had finally shipped a product we had been building for months: an options AMM. It was a beautiful challenge, and we were proud of it. We had real traders using it. We thought we were on our way.

But the product didn’t scale.

The demand for options in DeFi just wasn’t there. What looked like PMF turned out to be a mirage. 

Growth stalled, and people started saying we were solving a problem no one cared about: "No one wants options in DeFi."

Without PMF, without traction, things get tough. At this point, we had spent everything - time, energy, and capital - and we weren’t sure it was going to work.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Funds were running out, and we needed to fundraise. We started pitching, but doing it without momentum or conviction is brutal. I remember talking with my co-founders and asking ourselves: What if this is it? 

Not because we stopped believing, but because we were exhausted.

Then came the most challenging part: we had to let people go. People who were all-in. People who gave everything. It wasn’t their fault. 

It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done as a founder. You don’t forget it. It stays with you.

REBUILDING FROM THE GROUND UP

Looking back, that might’ve been one of the most powerful moments as a builder: Low runway, high uncertainty, but a committed team, passionate about solving the problem. We believed options could help people, and we just had to find the right design for it. 

We tore our product all down to the fundamentals. Got brutally honest. Talked to users like it was Day 1 again. Challenged every assumption. Basically re-started from zero, together.

This was the turning point. We went through hell as a team and came out stronger. Rysk stopped being just a product. It became something else: a mission, a lore, a team that refused to give up.

CHAOS BY STRUCTURE

If you’re in that place right now, here’s what helped us. Surround yourself with long-term people. Builders. Friends. Investors who stick around when it’s ugly. The ones who give you space, help, and a reason to keep going. The Castle community was one of them. That’s why I’m writing this here, in the Chronicle newsletter, hoping it can help any founder who’s in the middle of the same storm.

I’ve realized that being a successful founder isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about resilience. It’s about facing problems head-on, owning your mistakes, and moving forward anyway. The ones who survive aren’t the ones with the cleanest roadmaps. They’re the ones who accept that chaos and uncertainty is the average day, and learn to operate inside it.

When we first defined Rysk’s identity, we called it “chaos by structure.” 

At the time, it sounded cool. 

Now I actually understand what it means. 

It’s not just branding. It’s a core value. It’s how we build.

STILL BELIEVING

Startups die when they stop believing.
We’re still here because we didn’t.

Expect more coming from the life of a founder.

Follow Dan and Rysk on Twitter for more Defi and Founder content:

• Dan: https://x.com/DanDeFiEd

• Rysk: https://x.com/ryskfinance

💚 HYPEVM FARMING OPPORTUNITIES

The market is not the easiest, but lots of you, I HOPE, hold some little stable coins ready to be deployed in some profitable & productive operations.

With close to a third of the $HYPE supply still to be distributed and its strong price action, everything related to $HYPE and its EVM remains interesting for us as a place to park capital.

IT'S A CHAD ECOSYSTEM as well.

Today we highlight some more farming strategies on the Hyperliquid ecosystem:

1. HyperSwap 

The main dex on the chain has been doing well in recent weeks and its TVL has risen quite rapidly. 

The strategy here is simple, buy $HYPE token on the orderbook, bridge on the EVM and buy some $LHYPE from loopedHYPE which is an innovative staking protocol looping $HYPE to increase yield and stHYPE that is the other main staking provider on the EVM. 

Then, add some LP of $HYPE and/or $LHYPE/$stHYPE on it. 

A real FARMEuuuR would be repeating those operations on many addy.


2) HyperLend is the other obvious choice to farm the HypeVM.

It wants to position itself as the native borrow/lending protocol on the SHAIN.

With an exponential growth of its TVL since last month, we understand that we are not the only ones looking out there.

Tho, the Utilization of all the vaults are already MAXXED OUT at the moment: 

Also, I was only able to deposit dust on some of my addy, but the idea would be to track once they reopen more space for deposit and deposit/borrow $HYPE on with many addresses. 

3) Sentiment is another interesting play if you want to farm $HYPE.

They offer vault looping $HYPE on leverage (or not) in order to increase the amount of $HYPE held by the user meanwhile counting in as TVL for the overall metrics. Just need to get some $wstHYPE on Hyperswap then you are ready to loop. Select the collateral, the leverage and ofc, NFA.

This strategy is risky but excellent for point accumulation imo.

CONCLUSION 

When you farm point szn, you have to be careful WHERE you will deploy your capital in order to avoid being rugged or lost it in some scammy contracts.

Simple trick to protect capital? Look for teams that are doxxed, teams that are known IRL & doing events at conferences. 

🏰 CASTLE READS

• AI dispatch: our weekly roundup of all the news that matters in AI:

• Our Report on Arbitrum Chains:

• On Dolomite and $DOLO TGE:

• Our space on Arbitrum Grants:

That’s it for this week! Hopefully, both $BTC and $ETH will find good support after the small bounce they had. Otherwise, prepare for impact dear readers.

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.