Earlier today, more than $15 billion of BTC options expired on Deribit, one of the biggest expiries of the year. They settled at $83,931, just $28 above the cap of our current RiskON/RiskOFF epoch, which settles at midnight UTC. With BTC sitting right on that line, this epoch is almost decided: RiskOFF is up about 6%, near its maximum, and RiskON is slightly ahead. The bigger question is the next epoch. At midnight, a new one opens with a fresh band: a floor 5% below the opening price and a cap of about 6% above it, roughly $80k and $90k if BTC holds near the current level. So we asked the options market how that band is likely to end. Deribit's October options are pricing a 26% chance that BTC finishes the next epoch above the new cap, a 28% chance that it finishes below the new floor, and a 46% chance that it stays inside. In other words, options traders see BTC as slightly more likely to leave the band than to stay in it, and history agrees: about seven in ten 30-day stretches since 2019 ended outside a band like this one. That matters because outside the band is where RiskON and RiskOFF part ways. Above the cap, RiskON moves 2x while RiskOFF stops at its cap. Below the floor, RiskOFF's floor stops the loss while RiskON takes the extra fall at 2x. Inside the band, both simply track BTC. The mood going into the reset is calmer than it was on Tuesday. BTC futures open interest is down about $3 billion, funding is close to zero, and the Crypto Fear & Greed Index has moved from Extreme Greed to Greed. Leverage is lower in the system, but the market hasn't picked a direction yet. So, which side do you want at midnight? If you expect October to break higher, RiskON gives you 2x beyond the new cap, with no liquidations, margin calls, or funding. If you are worried about a drop, or you simply have no strong view, hold RiskOFF. It moves with BTC inside the band, and if BTC falls through the floor, losses stop at about 5%. You could always swap from RiskOFF to RiskON anytime you want if the cap approaches. The new epoch opens at midnight UTC on our testnet, so picking a side costs nothing but a few clicks. Make your call at app.riskprotocol.io, and use the simulator to see what each token pays wherever BTC lands in October.

We are building the Risk Layer of crypto, and at its core is a Risk Engine that prices risk every second. An engine that fast is only as good as the nodes connecting it to the chain, and it leans on them hardest on the days the market moves fastest, and every network is at its busiest. That is why we are glad to have @SpectrumNodes running dedicated nodes for us, with failover across regions, so the protocol can keep pace when the market speeds up. Thank you to the Spectrum team for backing builders at @SignalWeek (Paris Blockchain Week).

In less than six days, more than $1B of leveraged bets were liquidated across crypto, first the longs and then the shorts. Our current RiskON/RiskOFF epoch shows how far BTC moved during that period. Its floor sits 5% below where the epoch opened, at about $75k, and its cap about 6% above, at about $83.9k. BTC fell to the floor the day before the Fed hiked, as more than $500M of longs were closed out; on Monday, it broke through the cap as about $650M of shorts went the same way. At around $86k now, BTC sits near its highest level since January, about 15% above last week's low. The longs liquidated before the Fed were right about where BTC was going, but they were not in the trade when it got there. That is the lesson: when BTC can whip across the whole RiskON/RiskOFF band, from −5% to +6%, in under six days, a view only pays if the position behind it survives the path. Our Risk Dashboards point to more of this, not less: the forecast volatility model sees the next month as about a third more volatile than the last. The Tail Risk dashboard shows how fast the turns already come, with BTC taking twelve days to fall almost 8% from its early-September high and only three days to win it all back. Leverage is building back up anyway, with BTC futures open interest at about $51B, up from $44B when BTC sat at the floor. RiskON and RiskOFF went through the same week without a single forced exit. RiskOFF is now up close to 6%, the most it can make. RiskON follows BTC between the strikes and moves 2x beyond them, with no liquidations, margin calls, or funding; over the same stretch, it went from about 6% down to about 12% up. A new epoch opens on Saturday with fresh strikes, so now is the time to decide how you want to hold BTC through the next swing. If you trade it with leverage, ask whether last week would have closed your position; if it would have, RiskON gives you 2x beyond the strikes without that risk. If you want to stay in BTC but soften the next sharp day, RiskOFF is built for that: it cannot lose more than about 5% in an epoch. If you cannot tell which way the next week goes, hold RiskOFF through the uncertain part and rotate into RiskON as BTC climbs toward the cap. Timing that rotation is hard, so try it on our testnet at app.riskprotocol.io before you trade with real money as we build toward our mainnet launch.

Yield tokenization gave DeFi a new market. Risk tokenization gives it the risk infrastructure layer it never built. RiskON and RiskOFF split the risk of the underlying itself. One BTC or ETH in, two fully collateralized tokens out: RiskOFF with a floor on losses and RiskON with ~2x leverage. The split runs on options, not debt, so there are no margin calls, liquidations, or funding rates. RiskON and RiskOFF is just the beginning: the same engine can split risk along other lines too, like volatility, yield, and more. app.riskprotocol.io

Most people ask whether volatility is high or low. Almost nobody asks whether that volatility is mostly upside or mostly downside, and this week, upside is dominating, which is why BTC has climbed back above $84k, its highest since January. Our Historic Volatility Dashboard (riskprotocol.io/dashboard-ca…) splits BTC volatility into those two halves, and they have pulled far apart. The upward moves are among the biggest of the last three years, while the downward moves are among the smallest. ETH looks the same. This is why the week has felt so easy, and why leverage feels safe again. Nothing has punished leverage lately, which is not the same as leverage being safe. Meanwhile, our Forecast Volatility Dashboard (riskprotocol.io/dashboard-ca…) looks forward, not back, and it disagrees with the mood. The volatility it expects ahead is far higher than what the market has actually realized, and that expectation jumped this week. None of this means a fall is imminent. It means last week's calm isn't a guarantee for the next. Two things worth doing. Remember that nothing falling is not the same as being protected from falls. If you have been meaning to hedge, do it in a week like this one. Protection is cheap while falls are rare, and it never feels urgent until it is expensive. That's why we are building SMART Tokens like RiskON and RiskOFF so you can express your view on risk itself, and we are building the Risk Intelligence layer so you can measure that risk before you trade it. That is RiskFi. Making risk tokenizable, measurable, and tradable.

Yesterday the Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, but for much of the run-up, it was a toss-up whether it would raise or hold. Nobody could say for sure how BTC and ETH would react. A hike could have pushed them lower, a hold could have sent them higher, and you had to be positioned before you knew what was going to happen. This is the kind of period RiskOFF is built for. RiskOFF cannot lose more than 5% in an epoch, while its upside is capped near 6%, and between those strikes both RiskOFF and RiskON track the underlying. RiskON takes everything beyond the strikes at 2x leverage. Hold RiskOFF, and your loss on a bad decision stops at the floor. Now consider the other scenario: the Fed holds, and BTC and ETH run up. In RiskOFF, you are still in the trade, moving up with the underlying, and as the move climbs toward the cap, you can rotate into RiskON to take the rest of the move at 2x. Rotating between RiskOFF and RiskON gives you protection through the uncertain part and 2x leverage through the upswing. That is what RiskOFF and RiskON really are: a new way to express a view on the market, not just up or down, but how much of the move you want exposure to. They are the first two SMART Tokens, and we are building more. Another hike is expected this year, so get used to rotating between RiskOFF and RiskON on our testnet at app.riskprotocol.io before trading with real money on our mainnet. And while you are there, try out various simulations using our simulator on the dApp.

A new round of our Trading Competition is live on @Arbitrum. The last round saw tremendous growth in traders, as the prospect of an onchain marketplace for risk continues to resonate strongly across DeFi. Claim your free test BTC and ETH in the app, split them into RiskON and RiskOFF, swap between the two, and position for the market you expect. To qualify, you need $10,000 in testnet volume and should be active on at least three days. If you need Arbitrum Sepolia ETH for gas, the link is in the wallet dropdown on the dApp. You are scored 60% on P&L and 40% on Risk Control, so drawdowns count against you. A trader who made 20% with a 5% drawdown can rank above one who made 30% with a 25% drawdown. The top 100 earn RISK Points when the round closes on 14 October, and your rank determines how many. Every round you do well also adds to your Risk Championship total, the season-long standings that reward the top 10 traders who keep delivering round after round. Those still on the Championship table when the points program ends earn additional RISK Points on top of everything they collected along the way. For the thousands of you already in the competition, the new standings are out: see where you stand in the Risk Championship and who was promoted or relegated at the close of the last round. app.riskprotocol.io/dashboar…

For most of this year, holding BTC and ETH meant sitting through a slow bleed. BTC came off its October 2025 high of 125k and spent months grinding in the low sixties. ETH fell from about 4,700 to under 2,000 and stayed there. Nothing really moved, and it just wore people down. Then in the third week of August the market turned. In just days, BTC went from the mid-sixties to the high seventies, and ETH ran from just under 2,000 to above 2,500. Through all of that, the real question for HODLers was never whether to buy or sell. It was how much risk to hold while you waited, and crypto has never given us a clean way to answer that. RiskOFF is built for the grind. It is the defensive half of our RiskON/RiskOFF SMART Tokens, and it keeps you exposed to BTC or ETH while limiting your downside. What you give up is the upside beyond a cap, and everything above that cap flows to the other half. That cap is the signal. When a rally pushes RiskOFF toward its cap, the protection has done its job, and the cap is what holds you back. That is the moment to rotate into RiskON, the half that takes the leveraged upside above the cap, and it is one swap with no margin calls, no liquidation, and no funding to pay. So you wait out the storm in RiskOFF, then rotate into RiskON as the cap comes into view. You were forming a view on this market anyway. The only thing missing was an instrument that bounded your losses while you waited, then levered you up once the waiting was over.

What's your Risk Mode today?

RiskOFF and RiskON are just the beginning. We will not stop there. We are here to build the Risk Layer of Crypto @Arbitrum