Jan 6, 2025: Our weekly Institutional Insights explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

Weekly Highlight — Markets Snap Five-Day Loss Streak 

Investors are now seizing the opportunity to buy the dip in U.S. stocks after a five-day decline that erased over $1 trillion in market value. Wall Street has broken its longest losing streak since April, with the Nasdaq-100 rebounding 1.7% and the S&P 500 rising 1.3% on Friday, January 3. These gains slightly offset the week's sell-off, which had continued into the new year following a tough December.

Despite concerns about slowing earnings growth among tech giants like the Magnificent Seven, traders remain optimistic, especially regarding AI leader NVIDIA Corporation. The market believes that, as long as retail investors keep investing in AI, the associated stock market boom is expected to persist. 

Stocks reached their session highs in the afternoon after Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, indicating potential support for a business-friendly agenda. Meanwhile, bond yields rose, with the 10-year hitting 4.6% following comments from Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin about maintaining restrictive rates. U.S. manufacturing showed modest growth, with new orders at their highest since early last year, while investors assessed economic strength against the possibility of slower interest-rate cuts.

Weekly Crypto Highlight — AI Agent Spring Coming

Many investors are eagerly anticipating an Alt Season, a period when altcoins typically surge in value. However, current market dynamics suggest we may not see a widespread altcoin rally. The sheer number of tokens, combined with limited liquidity, has led to what's known as altcoin dispersion, making it crucial to select the right sectors and tokens.

, which are thriving even as the broader market declines. This nascent sector is experiencing rapid advancements, and its associated tokens face less pressure from venture capital unlocks. Many of its top protocols lack centralized exchange listings, indicating more buyers may enter the market.

Those investors who missed previous opportunities, such as the DeFi summer of 2020 and the Alt Layer 1 trade, now have another chance. Instead of targeting individual AI agents, the best risk/reward strategy lies in investing in infrastructure plays, which serve as the foundational tools for the sector.

The leading AI agent player is Virtuals Protocol, a platform for launching tokenized AI agents on the Base network. By purchasing tokens like Luna by Virtuals (LUNA) and VaderAI (VADER), users gain governance rights over specific agents, which allows them to both influence development and share in profits. 

Recently, daily protocol fee revenues dropped significantly in mid-December 2024 as activity slowed for the holidays. However, speculation around agent-associated tokens surged as the new year approached. Currently, Virtuals Protocol generates over $1 million in daily fees, though this is 50% less than figures for early December. Despite these challenges, the VIRTUAL token has more than doubled in value, reaching a market capitalization of $4.6 billion.

Other highlighted opportunities include Zerebro, which is pivoting to a full-stack framework for AI agents; ARC, with its Rust-based framework; and 

 (GRIFFAIN), a natural language on-chain search tool. These projects are well-positioned for future growth in the evolving landscape of AI technology.

 as we delve into leading AI agent tokens and the past week’s market movements. 

Advanced

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Market Snaps Five-Day Loss Streak; AI Agent Spring Coming

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

December's end-of-year options expiration brought an unexpected drop as realized volatility fell to the lowest levels of the month. Perpetual swap open interest remained stable, indicating these markets weren't heavily used for hedging against expired options, likely contributing to the muted volatility. 

While most expired open interest in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) hasn't been reinvested, the balance of calls and puts remains consistent. Notably, ETH options are pricing in higher implied volatility as compared to BTC, particularly for shorter expirations, leading to a flat term structure for ETH, while BTC is offering cheaper options exposure.

In the perpetual markets, low volatility and minimal spot movements have led funding rates for nearly all tokens to mirror broader market sentiment throughout the holiday season. On the options side, BTC's term structure is noticeably lower and steeper than ETH's, with realized volatility now dipping below implied volatility levels, highlighting an intriguing shift in market dynamics.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Open Interest Solid Amid Year-End Options Expiration

Although open interest for both BTC and ETH perpetual swaps hasn’t returned to early December 2024 highs, it remained robust throughout the significant end-of-year options expiration event. This suggests that these markets weren’t heavily utilized to 

 of the expiring options contracts, likely contributing to the lack of volatility observed during this period. Instead, trading volumes have dipped noticeably during the winter holiday season, coinciding with a collapse in realized volatility back to December 2024’s lowest levels.

BTC Option Curve Remains Steep During Call-Put Parity

The expiration of December's end-of-year options didn’t trigger the anticipated surge in volatility; instead, realized volatility has plummeted to the lower end of its recent range. The implied volatility term structure remains steep compared to both its recent behavior and ETH's, with longer-dated implied volatility around 57%, and 1-week at-the-money options trading about five points lower. Much of the expired open interest hasn’t yet been rolled into new positions, maintaining a neutral balance between puts and calls. Consequently, BTC's options market positioning is relatively neutral, lacking the leverage it had at the start of December 2024.

Huge ETH Option Expiring Doesn’t Cause Volatility

A late December spike in realized volatility didn’t carry into the new year, with ETH’s spot price currently exhibiting volatility below that of short-tenor implied volatility. Interestingly, the implied volatility term structure has undergone a steepening and re-flattening over the past week, contrasting with BTC’s slightly steeper profile. This suggests that ETH’s options market is anticipating higher short-term volatility in spot price movements. 

Despite the significant expiration of options open interest at the end of December 2024, which didn’t lead to a rollover into later expirations, call options continue to dominate the market and have increased at the start of 2025.

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Jan 2, 2025): BTC Options Continue to See Call-Put Parity, With Lower Short-Term Volatility Expected

Dive into FLock, a decentralized platform that revolutionizes the way AI models are developed, trained and deployed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform countless industries, but its development often raises questions about privacy, control and inclusivity. 

 is a unique decentralized platform that democratizes AI training, fine-tuning and inferencing. With its blockchain-powered infrastructure, FLock ensures transparency, security and community-driven decision-making, paving the way for AI models that align with established societal values. 

In this article, we’ll explore how FLock decentralizes AI training, its key features and its potential impact on developers, communities and users.

 platform that revolutionizes the way AI models are developed, trained and deployed. By leveraging blockchain technology and a novel approach called 

, FLock addresses critical issues in AI development, such as centralized control, lack of transparency and privacy concerns.

At its core, FLock’s mission is to democratize AI by enabling communities to participate directly in the creation and refinement of AI models. Through federated learning, FLock trains AI models across multiple decentralized devices or servers. This method ensures that data remains local, eliminating the need for raw data exchange while still enabling robust model training. By decentralizing the training process, FLock not only protects individual privacy, but also fosters a more inclusive ecosystem in which diverse contributors can collaborate.

What sets FLock apart is its integration of 

. This ensures that all contributions — whether data, compute power or feedback — are transparently recorded and fairly rewarded. Blockchain tech’s immutable ledger enhances trust among participants and safeguards the process against manipulation. Additionally, the platform’s on-chain incentive mechanisms encourage participation from a wide range of contributors, ensuring that rewards are distributed equitably.

Ultimately, FLock empowers communities to develop bespoke AI models tailored to their specific needs. By decentralizing the process and prioritizing transparency and collaboration, FLock breaks the monopoly of large corporations, creating an AI ecosystem that aligns with public ethics and societal values.

, an Oxford alumnus with a robust background in AI and blockchain technology. Sun, who serves as FLock's CEO, has an impressive career trajectory, having worked as the Director of AI for the Royal Bank of Canada and as an AI Research Fellow at Imperial College London. His vision for FLock stems from a deep understanding of both the technical and ethical challenges of AI development.

The founding team also includes other Oxford alumni, boasting over a decade of combined experience in AI research and the cryptocurrency industry. This team brings a collective blend of academic excellence and practical expertise that positions FLock to lead the decentralized AI movement.

FLock has successfully raised $11 million in funding across two rounds, reflecting strong investor confidence in its vision. In May 2024, FLock secured a $6 million seed round co-led by Lightspeed Faction and Tagus Capital, with additional backing from Digital Currency Group (DCG), Volt Capital, OKX Ventures and Inception Capital.

Later, in December 2024, FLock announced a $3 million successful funding round led by DCG and joined by prominent names like Animoca Brands, Fenbushi Capital, GnosisVC and GSR. These investments are being channelled into enhancing the platform’s testnet and federated learning client, accelerating FLock’s mission of enabling secure, collaborative AI development.

With this funding and over 1,500 nodes contributing from platforms like Numerai and Kaggle, FLock is rapidly scaling its impact on decentralized AI training.

FLock AI revolutionizes AI development through its decentralized training framework. This approach allows participants to contribute to AI model training without ever sharing their personal data. Instead, models are trained locally across devices using federated learning, which ensures that data remains with its owners while still enhancing the accuracy of the model overall. 

FLock’s reward system is designed to incentivize active participation. Contributors who provide data, computational power and/or feedback are compensated with FLOCK tokens, ensuring a fair distribution of rewards. 

FLock empowers its community through a robust governance framework. Decisions regarding AI model development, deployment and ethical considerations are driven by the community, ensuring alignment with established societal values. Through blockchain-based voting mechanisms, contributors can influence the direction of AI projects, fostering transparency and public accountability. 

FLock’s modular architecture allows contributors to participate in specific aspects of AI model development. Whether providing raw data or computational power or even refining algorithms, the platform enables a collaborative and scalable development process. 

At the core of FLock’s philosophy is its commitment to privacy and security. By leveraging blockchain technology, the platform ensures that no single entity controls the AI development process. Data remains local and protected by cryptographic measures, while the immutability of blockchain guarantees transparency in every transaction and model update. 

 begins with a blockchain and an AI layer.

The blockchain layer underpins FLock’s incentivization and security mechanisms.

The AI layer facilitates model training, refinement and deployment, leveraging both centralized and federated approaches.

Let’s have a look at the supply and demand for the FLOCK token.

FLock adopts a 1:2 ratio model between team/investors (33.3%) and community (66.7%), prioritizing community-driven growth and ecosystem expansion. The majority of tokens are allocated to incentivize user participation and long-term ecosystem success.

FLock aims to improve the future of AI development by decentralizing the training process and ensuring transparency, privacy and inclusivity. By leveraging blockchain and federated learning, FLock empowers communities to contribute to AI creation without compromising on privacy. Its innovative reward system and community-driven governance foster a fair and collaborative ecosystem. 

With significant backing and a growing network of contributors, FLock is positioning itself as a leader in decentralized AI, offering a more ethical and secure alternative to traditional AI development models. As it continues to scale, FLock is set to transform the way AI models are built and deployed.

 — and earn a share of a 10 million FLOCK prize pool. For more details, visit 

Intermediate

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FLock AI: Decentralized AI Training

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can complete a series of tasks in Network3 for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade.

Task 1: Register for a Network3 Account and Connect Your Bybit Wallet 

: Navigate to the campaign page and click on the 

task. Click on the task, and Galxe will ask to redirect you to the Network3 register page.

: Register for a Network3 account using your email address. You may indicate a 

Task 2: Download the Network3 App and Run a Node for One Hour

 and choose your operating system to download the Network3 app.

 or powerbutton, depending upon which operating system you’re using. For ease of reference, we’ve used macOS and iOS as examples below.

: Keep running the node until the timer reaches 

Beginner

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How to Complete Network3 Tasks for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade

Bybit Learn

Altcoins

DeFi

Zebec Protocol is a Solana-based DeFi platform that empowers a real-time, frictionless constant stream of payments and other financial transactions.

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Have you ever dreamed of getting paid for your work by the second? As Zebec Protocol works to revolutionize the world of payment streams, empowering employees around the world through instant payrolls, this will no longer be a dream.

? Scroll on as we cover what makes Zebec so special among other Solana-based projects, and how investing in ZBC tokens gives you the opportunity to take advantage of Zebec's future growth.

-based DeFi platform that empowers a real-time, frictionless constant stream of payments and other financial transactions. 

The continuous money streams made possible through Zebec seek to disrupt the traditional financial system, as businesses, employees and consumers completely reimagine how they’re paid, and how they invest and buy products or services.

 ideas, Zebec differentiates itself by addressing a crucial real-world issue that most salary earners face: wages. 

The founder of Zebec Protocol, Sam Thapaliya, has been inspired to improve the efficiency of the financial payment system through his personal journey as a self-made entrepreneur of two successful companies in the realm of e-commerce and AI algorithms.

Zebec’s payment streams, also known as Zebec Payroll or Zebec Pay, is the protocol’s first application, a tax-compliant on-chain processing system making use of low fees and instant transactions to transform payroll by allowing employees to be paid by the second. 

Zebec has also launched four other products following its flagship product: Zebec Card, Zebec Safes, Web3 Banking and Zebec Labs. 

Zebec Card, Zebec Safes and Web3 Banking work in tandem with Zebec Payroll to form an exclusive financial ecosystem within Zebec Protocol, whereby businesses and employees can earn, spend and store their money securely. The Zebec team also continues to showcase its innovation through Zebec Labs, aiming to find more ways to transform the finance industry.

Zebec is fully governed by its community. ZBC token holders become members of the 

, and can participate in voting on the platform’s future while enjoying rewards and discounted Zebec services.

From administrative mishaps to malicious mismanagement, an employee’s access to their due salary can sometimes be delayed. This is because there isn’t any existing infrastructure to support instantaneous access to wages. That’s where the low-fee, crypto-native payroll solution of payment streams comes in handy, as employees are instantly paid in stablecoins such as 

Zebec is the only real-time, by-the-second dollar-cost averaging investing mechanism available anywhere. By taking advantage of this unique strength, users can automatically convert a percentage of their paycheck into top cryptocurrencies. This automation greatly reduces the inconvenience of fiat on-ramps, and grants investors greater liquidity when investing in their favorite coins and tokens. 

On top of automated dollar-cost averaging, employees also have complete control over how they use their money, with easy-to-program smart contracts. This grants them easy access to DeFi applications in order to earn yield or to swap for lesser-known small-cap tokens.

With Zebec, employees no longer need to deal with the hassle of investing in crypto using IRA and 401K accounts. Since the process is automated, investors can effortlessly allocate a portion of their paycheck to compliant crypto IRA and 401K accounts.

By adopting Zebec, users can swap their cryptocurrencies into USD and transfer their money to their regular bank accounts without paying the usual fee associated with fiat on-ramps and off-ramps.

Although the industry is still in the early stages of a fully-fledged cryptocurrency payroll, Zebec’s unique technology certainly helps nudge things in the right direction. As the crypto is transferred directly from employers to employees, middlemen such as banks are cut out of the picture, and wages are safely stored in Zebec’s MultiSig Treasury Vaults. 

This improves overall security and speed, as transactions are stored on the secure Solana network and no third-party authentications are required, which slows transactions.

 Additionally, employers with a global workforce get to save on over-the-border fees and benefit from lower costs in the long run.

 further bolster transaction security as more than one signature is required to make payment, thereby preventing payrolls from being compromised. This treasury fund security feature is particularly vital for companies managing hundreds of payrolls.

Besides the aforementioned benefits of greater convenience, security and instant access to your wages, Zebec Pay also solves the common problem of payment disputes in the gig economy. Problems like unfair docking of payment and ambiguous freelancer contracts have long plagued the gig economy and prevented it from becoming more widespread. With the enforcement of Zebec’s smart contracts in place, such disputes can easily be resolved.

Zebec Card is a Solana-based debit card that can be used in the U.K. and 26 other European countries including Germany, France, Denmark and Italy. Since it’s powered by Mastercard, you can use it to easily off-ramp your crypto at over 60 million participating merchant stores. 

It comes in both physical and virtual versions, with only a simple 

 (KYC) verification required for sign-up. 

With zero annual fees and 1% transaction fees, Zebec Card is one of the lowest fee cards, alongside 

 Additionally, you receive automatic cashback of up to 10% with every use.

To use the Zebec Card, you’re required to store SOL, ZBC and/or USDC in your Zebec wallet. Moreover, if you store ZBC in your Zebec wallet you stand to gain up to 7% in monthly rewards. The more ZBC you store, the greater the bonuses you can expect to receive.

From its MultiSig Treasury Vaults, Zebec takes a step further in treasury management by introducing 

, ensuring 24/7 security through multisignature safes that comply with major web3 auditors like CertiK and Trail of Bits. Zebec Safes allows businesses, investors and individuals to manage their funds, as they can choose to save, spend and invest. 

Zebec Safes can be connected to DApps, and is multi-chain supported, working on both Solana and 

Zebec Protocol has also created its own web3 bank for users. Their USDC can be stored securely and used in multiple ways, such as spending it with the Zebec Card, off-ramping it to their personal bank accounts, transferring it across borders without delays or surcharges incurred, or sending it to their preferred crypto wallets, such as MetaMask and Ledger. 

The Zebec team have demonstrated their commitment to innovation by developing Zebec Labs, an innovation hub and incubator ecosystem for aspiring DeFi projects. Two projects have been initiated thus far with Zebec Labs: Operation Horizon and Nautilus Chain.

 is a community-driven campaign with the aim of launching the Zebec Chain, a payment-centric 

 blockchain set to be unveiled in 2023. Zebec Chain will replace Solana as the foundation blockchain for Zebec Protocol, given 

, which could otherwise pose long-term challenges for Zebec users. Zebec Chain will leverage 

 (TPS) to facilitate instantaneous payment transactions. 

During the building phase, users who purchase 

 will be able to operate a validator node on the Zebec Chain when it goes live. This NFT ownership also entitles participants to a share of 20% of Zebec's revenue, and the chance to get USDT and ZBC airdrops for each Zepoch Node NFT sold. 

If you decide to purchase a Zepoch Node NFT, note that it cannot be transferred or traded until all of the Zepoch Node NFTs are sold.

Created to act as a staging chain for users to transition smoothly to the upcoming Zebec Chain, Nautilus Chain is the first streaming payment blockchain with 

 to attain an initial TPS rate of 2,000 that will continue to grow over time. While primarily tailored for DeFi DApps, Nautilus Chain can also be utilized for web3 projects, such as GameFi DApps, due to its high throughput. 

ZBC is the native token of Zebec Protocol and has multiple roles as a 

ZBC’s maximum supply is 10 billion tokens. As a deflationary token, ZBC has a burn function that’s activated when gas fees are paid on both the Zebec Chain and Nautilus Chain. In February 2023, Zebec Protocol announced its intention to use 50% of its revenue to buy back ZBC tokens every month and send them for burning.

With the conception of the Nautilus Chain, ZBC now has two sets of token fee mechanics, one for Zebec Protocol and another for Nautilus Chain. 

The fees for Zebec Protocol and Nautilus Chain are distributed differently. For the Zebec Protocol, 50% of the ZBC fees collected are burned to curtail its supply and preserve its value, while 15% is allotted to developers, 10% to the ecosystem vault and the remaining portion to ecosystem incentives and various grants. In contrast, the Nautilus Chain designates 25% of ZBC for burning and 25% for research, with the remaining 50% set aside as compensation for validators.

ZBC is currently valued at $0.011 (as of Sep 6, 2023), marking a decline of 78.29% from its highest price of $0.053 on Apr 13, 2022, while reflecting an increase of 38.38% from its historical low of $0.008 on Nov 14, 2022.

Despite the ongoing bear market exerting downward pressure on cryptocurrency prices, analysts remain optimistic about Zebec's outlook. PricePrediction 

 to $0.045 in 2025, with ZBC’s price crossing the 10-cent threshold in 2018 to reach $0.26 by 2030. DigitalCoinPrice 

 for 2025 with ZBC hitting $0.042, but with a slower ascent to $0.12 in 2030.

Zebec isn’t simply a continuous settlement protocol for instantaneous payment of employee wages. It has the potential to revolutionize how the world thinks about wages and access to payroll, as it effectively removes the middleman in the financial transaction process and allows for direct and efficient payment between employers and employees. 

To answer if ZBC tokens are a good investment for the future, we can simply refer to the team’s future plans to expand the Zebec Protocol. 

Previously mentioned is that the team is releasing its own Layer 1 blockchain in 2023, the Zebec Chain. Once Zebec Protocol launches Zebec Chain, more users are expected to be drawn to the Zebec platform as it increases its reliability while maintaining high throughput. Zebec has also revealed its 

 to enable cross-chain transactions, starting from its integration with the BNB Chain. 

All of these plans suggest that Zebec is poised to broaden its reach and solidify its standing in the blockchain landscape. Given its strategy of expansion and numerous innovative developments, you might find ZBC a promising addition to your investment portfolio. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to note that our perspective on the Zebec Protocol shouldn’t be interpreted as financial advice. Always 

 before investing in cryptocurrencies, which are known for their volatility. 

With a strong focus on growing beyond its core payment streaming Zebec Pay service, we’re confident that ZBC tokens are a good investment, especially if you’re bullish on the future of crypto payment services. 

With future plans for its own blockchain in the works, Zebec’s goal of disrupting the world of traditional finance seems more and more likely with each milestone the team accomplishes.

Zebec Protocol (ZBC): Redefining Payments and Finance

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards