Arena Blog

The biggest crypto hack in history cost Bybit about 1.5 billion dollars in February 2025. Its customers lost nothing. Thieves give back almost nothing: 3.1 percent of everything stolen. So whether you see your money again depends on who can carry the loss. A solvent exchange can. A bankrupt one cannot, and in your own wallet, it is you. The biggest hacks, how they worked, and what follows for where you keep your coins.

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.

At its peak, EigenLayer held $22 billion. Of the $209 million in rewards paid to restakers since 2024, 99.6 % were newly issued EIGEN tokens. What EigenLayer does, who uses it, who paid the yield, and what happened when the issuance slowed.

NEAR lost four in five active users on its own chain in a year, yet had its best month ever in September 2026. What the chain does, why the money now comes from swaps between other chains, and how much of it actually reaches the token.

Since 1 July 2026 every crypto platform serving the EU needs a licence. For you as a user that means no ban, but this: without a licence you lose protections — segregated assets, liability, a complaints route. Which platforms are in the register, what happens to DeFi, USDT and your own wallet, and how to check a venue.

Oracle manipulation drained millions from Ostium — not through a contract bug, but through bad data. The failure modes when DeFi protocols trust their price feeds.

"Bitcoin is going productive" — they say. Wrapped BTC brings BTC into DeFi. How big is it really, who dominates, where are the catches? A sober map.

The "hacked again" reflex is wrong. What the Polymarket case actually shows — and the two places where crypto genuinely is harder.

Strategy's STRC has been tradable as a token on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana since May 5, 2026. Advertised yield: 11.5%. Real net yield for most international investors: between 5.9% and 8%. The tokenization structure permanently costs 15 percentage points of withholding tax compared to direct purchase.

A $292M exploit, $13B in TVL outflows in 48 hours. What happened, why it hit everyone — and what it means for a crypto portfolio.