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.

Advanced

block-scholes-x-bybit-report.jpeg

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

flock.png

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

network3 tutorial.png

How to Complete Network3 Tasks for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade

Bybit launched the Bybit Merch Creative Challenge for university students worldwide, offering a $50,000 USDT prize pool.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.22% on Thursday, its fifth straight decline, with investors eyeing Friday’s economic updates. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 2.03%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 2.79% and 2.70%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is XRP, which surged 1.9% following a rise in price driven by increased open interest and positive market sentiment.

Ripple (XRP), launched in August 2012, is a blockchain technology company focused on improving international payments with its cryptocurrency, XRP. XRP price surged due to increased open interest, a major XRP transfer, and market sentiment linked to Trump's inauguration. Bullish momentum is supported by high short liquidations, with key resistance levels to watch for further price movement.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

 for university students worldwide, offering a $50,000 USDT prize pool. Participants can design exclusive Bybit merchandise, with submissions open until Jan. 15, 2025. Winners will be announced on Feb. 1, 2025, across four prize categories.

Yesterday, Bitcoin Spot ETFs recorded a total inflow of $84.8M, driven by $107.9M from non-GBTC funds, partially offset by a $23.1M outflow from GBTC.

, offering an airdrop for participants who complete tasks like swapping and bridging using the Mango wallet. Points earned through tasks determine airdrop rewards. Join via the Mango wallet and follow steps on the testnet dashboard.

2.png

Bybit Launches $50,000 Merch Design Challenge for University Students Worldwide

Blockchain

Altcoins

Explainers

Entangle is a blockchain-based, customizable messaging infrastructure that makes it possible to communicate across separate blockchain networks. Read more here.

2401-T16454_Skinny_Banner_for_Blog_and_Learn_Row_53_728x90.png

Skinny_Banner-1600x400.webp

One unfortunate side effect of the modern 

 landscape is that many applications struggle to communicate. Every 

 is different, so people who use products on separate chains can run into unpleasant compatibility issues. Entangle plans to solve this problem by creating an 

 infrastructure that allows different chains to connect. If you're considering investing in Entangle, it's useful to learn how the system works and what features it offers.

 is a blockchain-based, customizable messaging infrastructure that makes it possible to communicate across separate blockchain networks. It uses a set of unifying tools and protocols to easily send data and assets across multiple types of blockchains.

, a British banker who has worked at many prestigious institutions including JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Deutsche Bank. During his time as a digital assets consultant, Mehrban discovered that the lack of interoperability was hindering 

 adoption. Many consumers were hesitant to explore the DeFi space because they felt like they had to learn a brand-new system for every task.

Mehrban began working with other financial and cryptocurrency experts to find a solution. Entangle now has a team of 17 full-time developers, engineers and other employees, and has successfully held two rounds of funding, raising

Entangle aims to empower developers with more interoperable data. Typically, 

 developers need to choose a blockchain and focus on it throughout the entire process of designing their system. However, Entangle allows developers more flexibility in managing things like sticky liquidity and off-chain entities. Moreover, developers can easily shift between blockchains and use the one that’s best for each specific part of their program. Unlike traditional 

 solutions, Entangle's comprehensive suite of custom oracles automatically handles all the details of information transfer.

Over the long run, Entangle hopes that its system of cross-chain operations will create a more accessible DeFi landscape. By providing true interoperability, people will be able to focus less on the blockchain behind the system and instead pay more attention to the product. The supportive infrastructure of the Entangle framework could potentially make it much easier for people to explore the web3 universe and improve their capital efficiency.

The Entangle protocol is an oracle solution that works by taking off-chain entities and placing them on-chain. To send data and assets between deployed chains, Entangle relies on its proprietary 

 layer and Entangle consensus mechanism. Here's how this architecture helps to enable cross-chain operations:

The Entangle ecosystem involves a lot more than just a custom oracle solution, providing cross-chain operations that allow it to offer customers many features.

 is a DeFi service that makes it easier for liquidity providers to 

 yield-bearing assets. The Entangle framework lets people place all their liquidity provision assets into a single location for better capital efficiency. Borrowers can then access these 

 of siloed liquidity to borrow assets. In addition to improving capital efficiency, the program for liquidity providers also promotes sticky liquidity that enhances liquidity retention.

In addition to liquidity provision assets and liquidity fragmentation, Entangle also focuses on improved cross-chain communication. Entangle data feeds are ideal for users who want to check prices without paying high gas fees. The platform’s custom oracles let applications get multiple prices from a variety of chains, and the data feeds also let you pick how often you want to receive data so you can find the perfect solution for your needs.

The Photon Messaging Protocol turns the basic Photon layer of Entangle into a way of communicating with the DeFi space. This cross-chain messaging system does a lot more than just aggregating data: it allows people to create an interconnected DeFi ecosystem, one in which DApps can pull from a variety of data sources, payment processors and other services.

Universal data feeds are a helpful application that takes the Entangle oracle solution and customizes it for individual developers. This custom oracle solution includes any mix of Web 2.0 and web3 data a developer needs. People can choose from both push and pull formats, so using Entangle data feeds helps them save on gas fees.

Since Entangle is currently in the process of launching its new token, it has created an 

 to help promote its interconnected DeFi ecosystem. The 

 will distribute 1.25 million tokens to Entangle testnet members, 5 million tokens to 

 stakers and 1.5 million tokens to Entangle validators. Users can apply for the airdrop simply by going to the Entangle website and linking their wallets. Actions such as using Entangle to borrow assets or access liquidity pools will result in higher airdrop rewards.

In the past few years, Entangle has been focusing on designing its protocol and creating a fully operational system. For most of early 2024, the Entangle oracle solution will be running a testnet to check for any bugs and ensure it’s aggregating data and improving capital efficiency correctly.

Entangle plans on launching its public blockchain and mainnet between April 4 and Apr 14, 2024. Once the deployed chains are live, the 

 will be focusing on adding more features. There are plans to launch a staking program for fragmented liquidity, refine their bridge front end and improve messaging capabilities. Entangle's 2024 road map also includes the official launch of several DApps built on its protocol, including Liquid Vaults for yield-bearing assets and siloed liquidity.

NGL is Entangle’s native token, used for managing transactions on its blockchain and acquiring funding for its project. With an initial circulating supply of

 and a maximum supply of 1 billion, the tokens will be allocated in the following manner:

NGL launched on Mar 13, 2024 at a price of $1.57. Despite an initial dip to $1.48, it quickly rose to its all-time high of $1.93, followed by a new peak of $2.40. Since then, NGL’s price has ranged between $1.50 and $2.10. 

 by the end of 2024 to $3.40, increasing to $7.08 in 2027 and $11.63 in 2030. This positive sentiment is supported by analysis from CoinArbitrageBot, which 

 $1.60 by the end of 2024, $3.32 by 2027 and $8.87 by 2030. 

Looking to trade Entangle tokens? Bybit now offers the NGL/USDT Spot trading pair. To get started, you’ll first need to create a Bybit account, fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

To celebrate this listing, Bybit is holding an exclusive event where you can earn a 

The first 5,000 new users who complete the following two steps between Mar 13, 2024, 8AM UTC and Mar 27, 2024, 8:59AM UTC will receive 30 USDT each:

If you’re already a Bybit user (prior to Mar 13, 2024, 8AM UTC), no worries — because you can still earn 10 USDT! Simply accumulate a deposit volume of at least 100 USDT worth of NGL during the event period, or deposit 100 USDT and buy at least 100 USDT worth of NGL using your Bybit account. Please 

 that rewards will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to the first 5,000 existing users.

Ultimately, the Entangle project manages to provide connectivity while improving on some of the challenges of traditional oracle solutions. Although it's not likely to be a revolutionary system used by millions, it certainly provides a helpful framework for DeFi developers. Since it's a fairly stable project, Entangle’s NGL token may work well for investors looking to diversify with moderate-risk investments.

However, the NGL token doesn't have an extensive amount of utility, and it has heavy competition from other compatibility solutions. Despite being a very recent launch, Entangle has struggled to attract attention and build a large community. Therefore, people considering investing in NGL need to 

 and make sure it's a good fit for their portfolio.

Entangle's ability to help various blockchains communicate with each other has a lot of exciting potential. By providing interoperable data, this oracle solution will allow users to experience all the advantages of different chains without the inconvenience of working with multiple networks. Whether you're looking for a new way to develop a DApp or trying to find another addition to your crypto portfolio, Entangle is worth considering.

Entangle (NGL): Cross-Chain Operations With Custom Oracles

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards