Castle Labs' broadest research lane is market structure: where liquidity sits, which venues capture flow, how capital moves across public and private markets, and what the data says before the narrative catches up. This is the home for our market maps, tokenisation work, exchange and venue analysis, volatility coverage, and macro-to-onchain research. It serves readers who need to understand not just what happened, but what changed in the structure of the market.
key figures as of 2026-07-07 · refreshed daily
This article is an excerpt from our research on The Renaissance of Onchain Options, mapping the expansion of options (and prediction markets) as a trading instrument and the volatility that prices them, published in collaboration with Block Scholes.
In the last 18 months, Prediction markets (PMs) grew from roughly $2 billion in monthly volume to more than $30 billion, scaling rapidly from a niche category to a mature ecosystem.
Mapping the growth of RWAs in DeFi
PropAMMs are all about onchain execution
Over the last couple of years, since the launch of Bitcoin ETFs, BTC has become an increasingly institutionalised and legitimised asse.
While most metrics are down across the board, the RWA sector is the only one showing consistent growth, with tokenised stocks among the fastest-growing RWA categories right now.
Vaults are becoming DeFi's default entry point for institutions
2026 is one of the most eventful years for IPOs, with the biggest IPO calendar in a generation.
For the last cycle, crypto has been strengthening its infrastructure, but the core audience remained the same.
The Beginning of Agentic Finance — research from Castle Labs.
From Neobanks to Onchain Banks — research from Castle Labs.
A New Standard for Privacy — research from Castle Labs.
Its 2026 and crypto is not just about gambling anymore.
Story of three weekends of Price Discovery on Hyperliquid
PLUS: Pendle's Road to DeFi Domination
69 Trillion: The Tokenisation Opportunity — research from Castle Labs.
See Through the PRISM — research from Castle Labs.
Inside Arbitrum DRIP Season 1 — research from Castle Labs.
The Fight for Yield is Over: Making DeFi More Accessible — research from Castle Labs.
Who Built Aave? — research from Castle Labs.
Institutions Are Here, and This Is What They Want — research from Castle Labs.
Crypto is going through its one of the discovery phases where speculative tokens will stop receiving new inflows.
Hyperliquid is Not a Company — research from Castle Labs.
How to Unlock $2 Trillion of Bitcoin Sitting Idle — research from Castle Labs.
The Layer Zero for all Chains — research from Castle Labs.
Don’t Trade Cryptos, Trade Rates — research from Castle Labs.
ICOs are officially back — research from Castle Labs.
ZK Proofs: Is Privacy Cheap Enough to Be Mainstream? — research from Castle Labs.
Predictions Entering the House of All Finance
Arbitrum Today: Strategic Focus and Growth Drivers — research from Castle Labs.
GPU backed loans
Why Bitcoin is Not (Yet) Digital Gold — research from Castle Labs.
What do Drones have to do with Crypto?! — research from Castle Labs.
Prediction Markets Have Never Been This Strong — research from Castle Labs.
Is Crime Legal Now? — research from Castle Labs.
DeFi Will Win — research from Castle Labs.
Secrecy and Grand Designs — research from Castle Labs.
CT Vibe Check: 2026 Predictions — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch: Merry Virtuals, Robotics and a General Vibe Check — research from Castle Labs.
Proving YourSELF: Privacy and Identity Verification in the Age of AI — research from Castle Labs.
Harmonix Finance: Innovating Yield Generation on HyperEVM and HIP-3 Markets — research from Castle Labs.
AI Dispatch #44: Best of December
To the New Beginning: the Almanak Games — research from Castle Labs.
Redstone x Arbitrum Stylus: Oracles Beyond the EVM Limitations — research from Castle Labs.
A Tale of two Worlds: A Comparative Analysis of Crypto Regulations Worldwide — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #43
The AI Dispatch #42
AI Dispatch #41: Cyber Espionage Led by AI? — research from Castle Labs.
Using AI swarms to build trading strategies
Predicting the future everyday.
Entering the Monad Arena.
Something is Brewing in Robotics — research from Castle Labs.
OpenEden: On The EDEN Token, Roadmap and Bringing more RWAs Onchain — research from Castle Labs.
xMAQUINA: The Robotics Treasury Company — research from Castle Labs.
Upshift: Institutional-Grade Yield Strategies for the Masses — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #38
This comprehensive report covers the oracle infrastructure behind top onchain money markets.
Mantle's Momentum: Short-Term Catalysts and Onchain TVL — research from Castle Labs.
DATs. DATs. DATs.
AI Dispatch #38: Can AI Really Trade? — research from Castle Labs.
The Builder Momentum: How Chain Adoption Is Evolving and What It Means for Small Builders — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #37
First we infiltrate, then we conquer.
Prediction Markets is the Alpha.
AI Dispatch #36 from Token2049
Castle Lending Series: Part I
The Solana Evolution: From Memecoins to Consumer Apps — research from Castle Labs.
Loopscale: Order book lending on Solana — research from Castle Labs.
On RWAs and Institutional-Grade Assets: The Case of OpenEden — research from Castle Labs.
Scaling AI on Ethereum — research from Castle Labs.
Can an AI Agent be your Personal Quant? — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #34 - Robotics, Vader Pivot, Backroom OCDs — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #33 - Agent Pear 🍐 — research from Castle Labs.
Going Beyond GPT Wrappers: The Next Phase of AI Agents — research from Castle Labs.
Abstract Chain: The Consumer L2 Where Culture is the Onramp — research from Castle Labs.
Evaluating the L2 Proposals Shaping Its Next Chapter
The AI Dispatch #32 - On AI Raises, Nano Banana, Shared Computing — research from Castle Labs.
Fluid: DeFi's New Dominator — research from Castle Labs.
Stablecoin Chains: Which Blockchain is Best Placed to Capitalize on the Stablecoin Revolution? — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #31 - FlipsideAI — research from Castle Labs.
Scaling Onchain Culture with Base — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #30- August in the AI Trenches, Backroom, Caesar AI — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #29 - Eliza is Back? Bullish Vibes, DePai — research from Castle Labs.
A Compound Finance Case Study
The AI Dispatch #28 - InfoFi Improvements, AIxbt Update, Robotics — research from Castle Labs.
The Beras Are Back: An Introduction to Berachain PoL V2 — research from Castle Labs.
Stablecoin Adoption and Regional Usage in 2024 and 2025: What Changed? — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #27 - Same Old, $REI Network, Hyperliquid AI? — research from Castle Labs.
Beyond the Monolith: MetaDAOs and the New Blueprint for Onchain Ecosystems — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #26 - Finding a Balance, The Launchpad Wars and Loomlay — research from Castle Labs.
The AI Dispatch #25 - BTC at ATH but what About AI? Intro on Giza, Virtuals Suffering — research from Castle Labs.
An Overview of Gaming on Arbitrum — research from Castle Labs.
Virtuals ACP Finally Live, Market Shakedown, Some Alpha from EthCC
The AI Dispatch #23 - Virtual Ecosystem, Kaito, TEE, Vader — research from Castle Labs.
Avantis: The onchain Leverage Layer for Every Asset — research from Castle Labs.
Introducing EigenCloud: Enter the Verifiable Cloud Era — research from Castle Labs.
PLUS: An introduction to the crypto x travel space - Travala
A Castle Research Piece
The Castle Chronicle 116
A Castle Research Report
PLUS: An overview of all the games available in the Arbitrum booth at the Game Developers Conference.
PLUS: Happy Birthday to the Arbitrum DAO now live for 2 years!
PLUS: Many Arbitrum Ecosystem Updates - Orbits, RWA, and more
All for One and One for All: The Evolution of Consensus Models with Hyperliquid, Monad & Sonic — research from Castle Labs.
PLUS: A Critical Look at Arbitrum DAO, Key News and Macro Forces Driving The Market
PLUS: Tether Relocates to El Salvador and Dubai Announces the Construction of 17-Storey Crypto Tower!
PLUS: How Crypto-Friendly Policies Could Reshape the Market
PLUS: Market Performance, Memecoin Resurgence, and SUI’s Hidden Gem!
PLUS: Arbitrum’s BoLD Push for Stage 2 Decentralization
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 78
PLUS: Looks like we're on the Verge of a Fed Pivot
PLUS: A recap of Arbitrum at ETHDenver
PLUS: Everything Happening in Arbitrum Right Now!
PLUS: Runes are Making a Comeback as we look at Bitcoin Ecosystem's Growth Potential
A Castle Research Report
A Castle Research Report: Diving into Polymarket and Azuro
PLUS: Intent-Based Interoperability and a Special Berachain Segment
A Castle Research Report
PLUS: the wildest AI token alpha you need to know straight from Castle's knights!
PLUS: A first look at our Alpha Scraper Bot in the Wild
PLUS: Token Sentinel’s Tricks in Analytics and Tracking
A Castle Research Report
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 71
A Castle Research Report
PLUS: ETHDenver is happening this week!
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 74
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 80
Everything you need to know on MegaETH, the real-time blockchain
PLUS: This week's Bitcoin price action and Market Watch
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 79
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 69
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 81
PLUS: Can Chain Abstraction Onboard the Next Wave of Users?
A Castle Research Report
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 68
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 75
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 70
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 82
PLUS: Stablecoin Trends and Bittensor Incentivization
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 76
PLUS: Why Market Makers are Doubling Down on the Craziest Tokens
PLUS: A Critical Look at Arbitrum DAO, Key News and Macro Forces Driving The Market
PLUS: We Breakdown the First AI Agent Millionaire
PLUS: A teaser of a future article
PLUS: Our Token Sentinel tips help you find the signal in the noise
PLUS: Our First Ever Arbitrum Corner on Stylus
PLUS: Castle is Hiring Content Creators
Arbitrum’s Path to a Stage 2 Rollup: How BoLD Enhances Dispute Resolution, Validation, and Security — research from Castle Labs.
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 73
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 77
A Comparative Analysis of Arbitrum’s Positioning within the Layer 2 Landscape — research from Castle Labs.
From Atomist
PLUS: Reflecting on 2024 for the Arbitrum DAO
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 47
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 59
A Castle Capital Research Report
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 51
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 65
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 41
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 57
Castle Capital: Modular Series
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 33
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 56
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 29
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 54
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 67
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 25
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 45
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 64
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 38
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 32
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 60
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 43
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 50
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 31
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 61
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 52
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 53
A Castle Research Report
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 46
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 66
Castle Research: An Introduction to DeFi Options
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 44
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 36
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 40
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 62
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 28
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 37
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 42
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 34
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 26
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 24
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 48
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 63
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 55
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 39
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 49
Castle Research: Modular Series
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 58
The Castle Chronicle: Volume 1
