The Castle Chronicle: DRIP is bringing the yield! Hyperliquid got an Asset Engine?
PLUS: Why Time in the Market beats Time to Market
Welcome to Edition 138 of The Castle Chronicle!
Gm gents, welcome back to another edition of the Castle Chronicle! We had an action packed week last week so grab a coffee, put your feet up, and relax with these stellar reads!
Here’s what we have for you today:
🔍 Market Watch - BTC sideway means alts can party feat: PUMP & MNT
🌪️ Funnel Markets lets any asset access HyperCore from anywhere
💜 The Founder Corner - Great products need time to breathe and improve feat: Ambire Wallet founder
💙🧡 ARB Corner - DRIP rewards bring an inflow of TVL to ARB teams, plus Apechain is back??
🎢 Happy All-Time-High to Mantle!
📖 Recommended Reads - The best reads from the best researchers on CT
🔍 Market Watch
Gm frens! BTC continues going sideways in a healthy trend which is once again giving space to other coins to grow. Each week BTC went sideways we’ve seen interesting opportunities in the market, and it’s no different this time!
Price Action
Although rather uneventful in the past few weeks, BTC has not lost the rising EMAs yet. Given the fact that BTC represents over 60% of the entire crypto market, this is a good thing. Going sideways in an overall bullish context is exactly what we want to see to hunt for relative outperformers!
Top Performers
This week’s winner is without a doubt $PUMP gaining an impressive 70%!
PUMP showed up last week already and continues to dominate. I absolutely love this chart! After a period of accumulation (green box) price started a new momentum cycle (price trending above the rising 10/20/50 EMA). Combine this with a bullish context of BTC and we got ourselves ample opportunity on the lower timeframes. At this point I would wait for a new re-accumulation, as this run looks a bit overextended and I wouldn’t want to chase the pump (pun intended).
Another chart I wanna take a look at is MNT. It’s been going sideways for a while and just became really interesting! It’s reaching out of its current range with amazing momentum - definitely a chart worth zooming into and following on the lower timeframes.
Narrative Performance
We got ourselves another one of those +/- 10% narrative performance profiles this week. This is indicative of a relatively flat market without any significant outliers.
Overall we’re in a great context to stalk for opportunities in the crypto market. We look for coins that are reaching out of their long-lasting sideways shenanigans with strong momentum OR new coins that showcase strength from the very start.
Our main goal during times like these is to diligently curate our watchlists, set alerts at key levels and wait patiently for opportunities to come our way. And once they do - risk responsibly!
I’ll see y’all next time!
Courtesy of 0x_Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student
Not following what I’m talking about? Check out my quick cheatsheet to understand how I approach a chart.
🌪️ What is Funnel Markets?
Built on the Hyperliquid ecosystem, Funnel Markets is a comprehensive "Asset Engine" designed to democratize access to HyperCore markets for any token or NFT, regardless of its origin chain.
Basically, I see Funnel Markets as a < degen > version of HyperUnit. You can bridge any assets you think deserve to be on HyperEvm using Funnel Markets’ feature. After the bridge is executed, a portion of trading fees generated from this asset contributes to its HIP-1 Dutch auction process, which unlocks native HyperCore spot orderbooks once liquidity targets are met.
And the first token they will bridge to the Hyperliquid ecosystem is the Solana $TOKABU token.
In order to bootstrap liquidity and trading volume for those assets freshly bridged to the HL ecosystem, Funnel Markets has built an innovative FUN point season that would be rewarding LPs, traders & holders of the bridge asset.
Funnel will as well be offering an unified web-based terminal that combines real-time charting, portfolio tracking, on-chain analytics, and one-click trading across all HyperEVM DEXs and launchpads.
Everything is still under BETA phase and they seem to go in multiple product directions (from a bridge to a trading hub), but I think that this project need to be kept on your radar — plus this FUN point season is worth it to farm.
HyperUnit is having a lot of traction and mindshare but imo, competition is needed in the < Hyperliquid bridge business >. So keep an eye on Funnel Markets an0n.
From CL
With love.
💜 The Founder Corner: Time in the Market beats Time to Market
It was 2020, and DeFi summer was brewing - it was the end of my first bear market since I actively worked in crypto…
It was a relief, because it felt like everybody was disenchanted with the space back then, so seeing the first real use cases of Ethereum was big WAGMI energy!
A bit of a backstory - while my first web3 experience was actually mining BTC in 2011 on my CPU while still in high school to be able to afford cloud storage (poorly spent BTC, I know), it took me a while to see beyond the cultish nature of crypto. While having a cultish nature is good, it takes a while to understand how philosophically significant all of this is: realising it’s about personal freedom is how I started Ambire.
My journey restarted in 2017 thanks to the magic of programmable money with Ethereum.
This is when I started AdEx with my cofounder, solving the real-world problem of ad fraud through a decentralised ad network, transparent to publishers but private for users. We concluded a successful ICO, our token performed well, we shipped the product, and the underlying technology became the largest payment channel network on Ethereum, processing billions of transactions.
But there was cooler underpinning tech there: the built-in wallet. This also came from a real need to make onboarding easier, as onboarding marketers onto MetaMask and explaining seed phrases to them was next to impossible. So, we casually built one of the first account abstraction wallets as part of the AdEx platform back in 2019. It was a simple smart wallet that abstracted away onboarding, thanks to email login, and gas fees, thanks to our own relayer (this was way before ERC-4337).
So fast forward to DeFi summer again. It was possibly a more euphoric time than 2017, buying food coins on Uniswap and wrapping them in a million ways to earn 69420% APY was all the rage.
But participating in this frenzy was a pain for everybody. These issues included:
Failing transactions
expensive and unpredictable gas
The hassle of scrambling to obtain ETH/BNB/xDAI or whatever the native token of the chain that’s hot today, just to pay gas.
Worst of all, your normie friends might want a piece of the action, and they’d stare blankly as you try to explain seed phrases and the intricate way crypto wallets work.
So, this was when it became clear what to do: the tech we had developed with AdEx had much greater potential beyond advertising, and it was valuable for everyone. It would also help us rectify the mess that was Ethereum UX.
This was about more than just fixing a crappy UX. Self-custody is a key aspect of the cryptocurrency ethos. Once you experience sending funds across the world in seconds for cents, trading without restrictions, and getting collateralised loans in seconds, crypto feels like magic, and TradFi feels like shackles. Obviously, we don’t even need to get started on people getting unbanked or your funds not being truly yours. All the real ones know that self-custody is the root of it all.
In 2020, we began working on Ambire, envisioning a web wallet with easy onboarding. We spun off AdEx’s built-in wallet, and we rushed through DeFi summer to ship it ASAP. After over 6 months, we realised we had to scrap the UI, and rewrite it from scratch.
This was an effort I was spearheading. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a coder, I started building games back in middle school and this experience came in handy. Me and a very talented dev who we temporarily recruited from my previous the UI in about 30 days, including improvements such as built-in swap and on-ramps. This highlights the importance of being pragmatic and find a good balance between planning and execution. The project management for this delivery was literally a napkin on which I had written day by day what we needed to achieve. It worked. By the end of 2021, we had shipped Ambire.
While the web wallet was a success, with over 100k sign-ups, $30 million TVL within a few months, and tens of integrations like Uniswap, on-ramps, off-ramps and more, it had a few flaws:
Users had existing accounts they wanted to import, which was not possible due to how account abstraction worked.
WalletConnect as a web wallet (not a dapp) was and still is an extremely exotic user flow, and most of our users never learned they can connect dapps to it despite multiple explanations.
Side note: to design the best UX, assume users can’t read and make sure they can still use your product despite that.
And this is how the Ambire Extension was born, improving thanks to past learnings. This brings us to today, where Ambire has surpassed the growth of our web wallet, boasting over 5x the active users it ever had, and continues to grow from here…
I learned so much in this journey: that product is king even in web3, and the only way to do things right is to connect to users as much as possible, listen to them and iterate based on their needs.
Furthermore, even in our fast-paced industry, time in the market beats time to market: building great things takes time, and marathons always produce more value than sprints.
Courtesy of Ivo, Founder of Ambire Wallet
💙🧡 ARB Corner: Ecosystem Updates
Welcome to another bi-weekly edition of our Arbitrum update!
For this week, we provide a recap of the most interesting happenings in the ecosystem and touch upon Apecoin, one of the Arbitrum Chains that’s gaining more traction lately.
We start by sharing an update on DRIP.
At the beginning of September, Arbitrum launched its Defi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP). The initial strategic focus was on Leverage Looping strategies, where users could deposit blue chip assets such as ETH/Stables, borrow and loop them.
Supported protocols include Aave, Dolomite, Euler, Morpho, Fluid, Silo.
Here is an overview of the top 10 opportunities users can take advantage of:
Lend WETH on Aave
Borrow WETH on Aave
Supply USDC on any Morpho Market
Supply USDC or USDT to Fluid fUSDC or fUSDT vault
Supply USDC on Morpho to a Morpho vault
Borrow USDC on Morpho
Supply USDC to Euler Earn Vault
Borrow WETH on Dolomite
Borrow USDC on syrupUSDC/USDC
Supply USD on Silo Vault
It’s been slightly over a week since the kickstart of DRIP, how are things going?
Looks like Arbitrum is killing it!
According to the data gathered from Entropy Advisors’s Dune dashboard, Arbitrum is greatly benefiting from the targeted approach of DRIP. Among the most interesting accomplishments:
TVL has grown by $350m (10+%)
RWA AUMs grew by 13% in the month
DEX liquidity has increased by $104M (23.5%) since DRIP launched, with Fluid being the major contributor. In the image below, we highlight the growth of DEX liquidity for ETH assets.
USDC borrowing volume increased by 41% to $431m
Lending protocol fees have kept trending up (Euler +47%, Fluid +46%, Silo +17%)
ETH asset market cap almost 2x from July 2025
Best performers among protocols:
Morpho went from $40M to $162M
Fluid grew by over 20%, mostly driven by USD loops and USDT/USDC supply
Silo grew 30% to 80%, mostly thanks to ETH-based looping strategies
Overall, utilization grew from 12 to 44%, mainly driven by WETH and USDC loans.
For an in-depth analysis of specific protocol KPIs, we redirect you here:
Best performers among assets:
ThBILL from Theo Network has 40x its market cap (was recently launched)
USDe and sUSDE have grown by 5x and 10x, respectively
syrupUSDC grew to $26million in market cap
wstETH has added over $30m to its market cap
Resolv’s wstUSR and RLP grew to over $7m
For an in-depth analysis of specific asset KPIs, we redirect you here:
The success of DRIP is a living example of the potential of strategic incentive programs that focus on strong or unique verticals and assets rather than spray and pray among different protocols. We’ll continue monitoring as the program moves forward, with a final report on its effectiveness.
In the meantime, let’s see what else is going on in the ecosystem!
Ecosystem Update
Ethereal (from Ethena) is also preparing for its launch on Arbitrum: get ready to trade perps and get USDe rewards.
Reactive launched a build with React campaign for builders:
Honourable mention to Apecoin, which recently undertook several updates and is gaining momentum.
For one, they recently also launched on Solana:
This is part of their RAID campaign, the Rapid ApeCoin Integration Deployment, to shift ApeCoin from a governance token to a culture coin.
We can therefore expect more $APE deployments, with a focus on:
Adding new onboarding FIAT ramps and Defi integrations
New partnerships and co-marketing strategies
Ensure deep DEX liquidity for $APE
Make $APE into a productive asset integrated on lending protocols
$APE perps and options
That’s all for this segment!
We’ll continue to update you on DRIP, as well as diving deeper into the most successful protocols, assets, and ecosystem integrations.
🎢 Happy All-Time-High for Mantle
This week's newsletter also features a segment on Mantle!
We’ve already discussed the extremely positive progress undertaken by Mantle, following their pivot towards being the bridge between TradFi and DeFi.
To dive deeper into the elements that contributed to this, make sure to read our full report:
Instead, today we follow up on this by focusing on some of the major accomplishments across the Mantle ecosystem.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
First and foremost, happy All-Time-High to all the Mantle aficionados!
While price is seldom an objective in itself, it is a tangible representation of the market’s confidence in the Mantle vision.
$MNT is currently trading at around $1.70, having reached a low of $0.53 in July 2025, despite Mantle's pivot and renewed roadmap. This is over a 3x in price in less than two months.
This can be attributed to Mantle’s unique positioning. Facing increasing competition from other L2s, Mantle has differentiated itself by becoming a bridge between TradFi and DeFi, with a focus on:
offering access to real-world and crypto financial services
strategic use of its treasury funds, one of the biggest in crypto
As part of this, they announced the MNT x Bybit roadmap, exemplified by two new Bybit executive advisors joining the Mantle team, and several MNT-exclusive campaigns.
Users will be able to buy MNT with low slippage, use it to unlock utilities and VIP benefits on Bybit, as well as benefit from earn initiatives such as staking, structured products, Launchpools, and Megadrops.
Here’s an overview of the initial MNT Bybit roadmap, divided by activity and timeframe:
Mantle is somewhat of an interesting example, as it is a hybrid where:
It works closely with a centralized exchange
Core voting decisions are still taken by the DAO
Among those, they recently approved their core team budget for the next year.
Wondering how much it takes to run a T1 Protocol with an institutional focus? The 2026 budget for Mantle is about $52m, of which:
$15m for Salaries and Workforce
$12m for Marketing
$12m for ecosystem and builder programs
$8m for Infra and security costs
$5m for legal, recruitment, and admin stuff
Mantle has strongly differentiated itself compared to other L2s, and it’s paying off.
We’ll continue monitoring these developments, with a specific focus on how the Bybit collaboration evolves.
If you’re curious about the Mantle ecosystem, we recommend reading our full report and giving it a try by joining the MNT-exclusive campaigns on Bybit.
In the upcoming weeks, you can also expect us to push a Mantle ecosystem-focused report. Stay tuned!
📖 Recommended Reads
A summary of an interview by Thomas Wolf, done by @jinglingcookies, detailing how robotics can turbo-charge its growth.
A comparison of Twitch vs Pumpfun, and where Pumpfun may be closing the gap, by @Kunallegendd
An excellent overview of the Hyperliquid stack by @sumcap
That’s it for today’s issue, we hope you enjoyed it.
You can check out our X for new research reports and weekly gigabrain content.
See you in the next issue,
The Castle Team
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.
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