Arena Blog

The Smarter Web Company, a UK web agency, holds 2,830 bitcoin and is traded as a bitcoin stock. Checked against its own filings: you pay about 30 % more than the bitcoin that belongs to shareholders is worth, the bitcoin per share has fallen since April, a 12 % preferred dividend now costs more than the agency earns, and in July the company sold bitcoin at a 39 % loss to repay a loan. When the share makes sense, and when an ETF or your own coins do the same job for less.

Derive handles almost nine in ten dollars of option premium paid on blockchains, and its token DRV has risen ninefold in 2026. But on-chain options are a small slice of the market: Deribit alone trades about 14 times as much as all on-chain venues together, the liquidity costs up to twice what Derive earns in fees, and bought-back DRV goes into a treasury rather than being burned. What Derive does, who uses it, what was announced and what can be checked, and how DRV has done against bitcoin.

Hyperliquid calls itself decentralised. When markets got tight, a market was closed by vote, winning positions were force-closed and a bridge was paused. Who holds the stake behind those decisions, and what it means for traders and HYPE holders.

Solana is gaining ground where the future is supposed to be: its share of tokenized securities has more than doubled since early 2025, and BlackRock keeps 43 percent of its BUIDL fund there. But in the third quarter of 2026, 65.7 percent of the revenue of apps on Solana came from memecoin trading, and 1.2 percent from all the long-term fields together. What Solana does, where it really grows, who buys and sells SOL, and how the price has done against bitcoin.

Kaspa delivered: ten blocks per second since May 2025, smart contracts since June 2026. Yet users pay the network about 94 dollars in fees a day, less than Dogecoin, while new coins worth 71,500 dollars go to miners daily. What Kaspa does, who uses it, how its supply works, and why every upgrade so far was followed by a lag against bitcoin.

Staking ALGO pays roughly 5 percent a year. The network takes in about $142 a day in fees, around 170 times less than it pays out. The rest comes from the Algorand Foundation, committed for about 24 months from January 2025. What Algorand does, who really uses it, who holds and sells ALGO, and how the price has done against bitcoin.

Zcash can hide what Bitcoin and Lightning cannot: the amount. Private use grew as fast as the price last year. But per private transaction the market pays ten times what it pays for Monero, and the few who carry that price have stopped buying.

Venice sells private AI, and its DIEM token pays out one dollar of API credit every day. A DIEM costs about $1,870 on the market, but minting a new one locks up VVV worth about $11,500. What Venice does, how DIEM works, who controls the supply, and how VVV has done against bitcoin.

Every new blockchain on Avalanche used to lock up AVAX: 2,000 per validator. Since the Etna upgrade in December 2024, all 577 active validators of Avalanche's own chains pay about 9,200 AVAX a year combined. What Avalanche does, who uses it, what really carries the token, and how AVAX has done against bitcoin.

TAO copies Bitcoin's supply plan: 21 million, halvings, 3,600 new coins a day. That puts it where Bitcoin stood in August 2013, with 11 percent new supply a year. What Bittensor does, who uses it, how fast the supply really grows, and what a software update added in September.

Every AI agent launched on Virtuals trades against VIRTUAL, which is the core of the case for the token. On-chain, the agent pools hold 22.75 million VIRTUAL, about 2.3 percent of the supply. What Virtuals does, who uses it, how much of the token the agents tie up, and what the price has followed instead.

In June, STRC fell to $75 and critics warned of a death spiral. The dividend kept coming, Strategy kept its bitcoin, and STRC is back at $99. What Michael Saylor's "Digital Credit" playbook did in practice, what it cost shareholders, and what comes next.