castle

Castle Labs released a research report on September 10, comparing the execution costs of the swaps products launched by Variational with traditional perpetual contracts. The report shows that for most trading volumes, Variational is currently the lowest-cost venue among listed assets, with the cost of a $1 million trade in the US100 market being only $47.The report points out that the trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts has grown from less than $1 billion in October 2025 to over $12 billion in August 2026, currently accounting for about 12% to 13% of on-chain perpetual contract trading volume, with a peak in July reaching 20%. As of the report's release, the total open interest of RWA perpetual contracts was $4.9 billion, with TradeXYZ and Variational accounting for nearly 90%.Variational's swaps utilize RFQ execution and the proprietary liquidity provider Omni, with liquidity coming directly from traditional financial partners, and the fees being a holding cost charged once at the daily close, rather than relying on market supply and demand funding rates. Since the launch of the US100, US500, XAU, XAG, and USOIL markets at the beginning of the month, a total trading volume of $3.8 billion has been accumulated, with a peak open interest of $245 million. Currently, swaps have contributed over 50% of Variational's daily trading volume and more than $220 million in open interest.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, the Bitcoin fintech company Castle announced that it will open its automated Bitcoin financial stack to individual users and launch a pioneering feature in this category: users can choose to receive dividend income in cash or Bitcoin at any ratio.Castle's revenue comes from the perpetual preferred stock STRC issued by Strategy, which was incorporated into the platform earlier this year and currently pays an annualized dividend of 12% on a semi-monthly basis. Users can receive 100% of the dividends in cash, convert 100% to Bitcoin, or choose any ratio between the two. According to the company, most users opt for a compromise solution, using cash to cover daily expenses while automatically reinvesting the remaining portion into Bitcoin with each dividend payout.Castle co-founder and CTO João Almeida stated that investors have long faced a dilemma of choosing between stable income and holding Bitcoin. Castle allows users to achieve both cash flow and long-term upside by automatically converting a portion of the dividends into Bitcoin. Previously, Castle only catered to business clients such as restaurants, gyms, accounting firms, and e-commerce; the opening of personal accounts was due to repeated requests from business owners. Castle was co-founded by Almeida and CEO Stephen Cole and has received investments from Boost VC and Winklevoss Capital.

Castle Securities stated that the Federal Reserve remains unwilling to tighten monetary policy despite inflation rates being above target levels, leading to long-term bond yields being at multi-year highs, posing risks to the market. Noshad Shah pointed out that although the policy rate is 175 basis points lower than its peak, long-term U.S. Treasury yields are still at their highest levels in nearly 20 years. Shah warned that recent improvements in inflation should not be interpreted as a removal of interest rate risks.

According to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that a recent wave of complex cyberattacks targeted several large asset management firms on Wall Street, with attackers attempting to infiltrate the information systems of the relevant companies. Several large hedge funds globally became targets of the attacks, including Two Sigma Investments, Citadel, and Point72 Asset Management. In addition, several private equity firms were also attacked.It is currently unclear who the attackers are, the methods used in the attacks, and whether any sensitive data has been compromised. Informed sources requested anonymity due to the involvement of undisclosed information. This incident has once again raised market concerns about the cybersecurity risks faced by financial institutions. As asset management companies increasingly rely on complex information systems, algorithmic trading, and cloud infrastructure, the financial industry is becoming a primary target for cyber attackers.

According to Jinshi News, Castle Securities stated that the forces that drove U.S. stocks to record highs this year are still "firmly in place" after retail investor speculative trading has cooled down. Scott Rubner, head of equity and equity derivatives strategy at Castle Securities, indicated that the market is shifting from a fund flow-driven environment to one determined by earnings, corporate demand, and macroeconomic conditions.The retreat of retail investors has led to a 28% decline in the asset size of leveraged ETFs to $154 billion, and the decrease in financing costs for stock positions indicates that the pressure faced by Wall Street's trading departments has eased. Recent strong earnings performance is favorable for the U.S. stock market, and corporate buyback demand is expected to accelerate.

Castle Labs released a report stating that since the beginning of the year, crypto protocols have generated approximately $7.42 billion in revenue, but most token prices have failed to reflect the fundamentals of the protocols. The report analyzes six protocols, including Aave, Hyperliquid, PumpFun, and Uniswap, finding that they collectively generated about $726 million in revenue in the first half of 2026. However, after accounting for token issuance, unlocks, and incentives, the net value inflow for token holders turned negative for some projects.The report points out that Hyperliquid has burned over 47 million HYPE tokens, and PUMP has completed over $315 million in buybacks, yet the token is still down about 60% from its issuance price. Protocol revenue does not necessarily translate into token value, and investors should also pay attention to factors such as value return mechanisms, token unlock pressure, and equity structure.

According to PR Newswire, the on-chain execution infrastructure company Birdai Labs announced the completion of a $4 million seed round financing, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Metalayer Ventures and The Venture Dept.Birdai Labs focuses on providing measurement, verification, and optimization infrastructure for transaction execution quality on high-performance public chains, aiming to reduce value loss between orders and executions caused by sorting and propagation, and to return more value to traders and market makers. The company's team comes from traditional financial institutions such as Franklin Templeton and Citadel, and is expanding its senior engineering and quantitative research team to adapt to on-chain execution competition under a multi-proposer architecture, and to provide verifiable fairness and transparency execution standards for future institutional participation in the digital asset market.

Castle Labs released an RWA industry report stating that the on-chain tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) has reached $28.2 billion, an increase of about 500% compared to early 2025, with a peak of $31.8 billion.Currently, tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds and money market funds remain the largest category, with a scale of about $17 billion, accounting for nearly 60% of the entire RWA market, among which BlackRock BUIDL and Hashnote USYC have both surpassed $3 billion in scale. The report also points out that tokenized stocks have become one of the fastest-growing RWA sub-sectors, growing over 170% this year, significantly higher than the approximately 60% growth rate of tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds.Castle Labs believes that the expansion of stablecoins, the entry of institutional funds, and the advancement of regulatory frameworks such as CLARITY and MiCA are driving the continuous on-chain migration of traditional financial assets. However, the current industry's biggest bottleneck has shifted from asset issuance to redemption mechanisms and DeFi composability. Currently, of the approximately $28.2 billion in on-chain RWA, only about $3 billion has entered DeFi, with a penetration rate of about 10%.

According to Jinshi, Castle Securities in the United States stated that as inflation continues and spreads, the Federal Reserve may begin a series of interest rate hikes as early as September.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the prediction market Polymarket for the "Spurs vs. Knicks" event, the "is" option for the sub-market "Stephon Castle: Assists O/U 6.5" experienced a dramatic fluctuation in win probability, dropping from 55% an hour ago to the current 37.5% (a fluctuation of 17.5%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the predicted market event "Knicks vs. Spurs" on Polymarket, the win probability of the "Yes" option in the sub-market "Stephon Castle: Points O/U 16.5" has experienced significant fluctuations, soaring from 47.5% an hour ago to the current 65.5% (a fluctuation of 18%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to on-chain data monitored by Catcher Predict, significant capital movements are predicted in the market Polymarket. A large whale invested $82,250 in a single bet on the event "Newcastle United FC vs. West Ham United FC," targeting "Newcastle United FC." Based on the current transaction price, the latest corresponding winning probability for this target is 47%.

According to on-chain data monitored by Catcher Predict, significant capital movements are predicted in the market Polymarket. A large whale invested $212,520 in a single bet on the event "Nottingham Forest Football Club vs Newcastle United Football Club," specifically targeting "Newcastle United Football Club." Based on the current transaction price, the latest corresponding winning probability for this bet is 46%.

According to Fortune, Valinor, a blockchain private credit startup co-founded by former Blackstone employees, announced the completion of a $25 million seed round financing. This round was led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from the crypto division of Susquehanna, Maven11, and the founder of TeraWulf, a Bitcoin mining company transitioning to artificial intelligence.Valinor's core business is to put the private credit process on-chain. Traditional private credit institutions rely on manual verification and spreadsheet collaboration when handling revolving credit lines and other businesses. Valinor plans to replace these processes with smart contracts to achieve automated routing of funds and condition-triggered execution.Both co-founders have traditional finance backgrounds, having worked in banks and the private credit division of Blackstone before transitioning to the crypto industry in 2022. Initially, Valinor focuses on providing loans to crypto companies, and later plans to introduce blockchain technology into the loan process to enhance efficiency. Currently, the company has completed lending for several fintech and crypto companies through blockchain technology.The funds raised in this round will be used to expand the loan scale, broaden the customer base, and increase team personnel, with the current number of employees at 6.

Foreign exchange trading startup XFX, which supports stablecoin trading, has completed a $17 million financing round, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Haun Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.Santiago Alvarado, co-founder and CEO of XFX, declined to disclose the valuation of the company in this financing round. It is reported that XFX currently allows customers to exchange between stablecoins and also permits the exchange of three fiat currencies: US dollars, Mexican pesos, and Colombian pesos.

According to Decrypt, the YouTube comedy short "Crypto Castle" has been released, set in an era when the price of Bitcoin was only $250.Actress Viv Ford plays Viv, telling the story of her living in an apartment with four early Bitcoin users, showcasing the development and evolution of cryptocurrency as a subculture.

According to Fortune, stablecoin infrastructure company Cyclops announced the completion of an $8 million funding round, with the valuation undisclosed, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, F-Prime, and Shift4 Payments.Cyclops is dedicated to building a layer of infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of stablecoins. Cyclops co-CEO Alex Wilson stated, "Our vision and goal is to be the first platform that payment companies think of when building various stablecoin solutions."

The father of smart contracts and co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, Nic Carter, posted on the X platform stating that the incentivized posts on platforms like Kaito combined with AI have generated a large amount of low-quality content. The early fun of the crypto tweet circle was in grassroots gaming, but the current industry growth focus has shifted towards stablecoins and financial infrastructure, leaning more towards institutional and VC narratives, making it difficult for ordinary retail investors to feel the opportunity for "fair participation and getting rich against the odds," leading to a decline in participation enthusiasm.Additionally, the "de-niche" design of the X platform, which enhances "recommendations for you," makes it difficult for creators to reach their niche communities, resulting in fewer opportunities for crypto professional content to be recommended. Nic Carter added that the X platform has quickly responded by revoking the API access for the "InfoFi" application to reduce platform spam content, and he strongly supports this approach.