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

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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 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.

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

Bybit Learn

DeFi

Mode is an Ethereum Layer 2 network that makes it easier and more efficient to develop web3 projects. Learn more here.

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 Ethereum networks are one of the most popular ways of handling modern 

 transactions. Since they make the classic 

 system faster and more affordable, Layer 2s are ideal for creating 

 hopes to stand out from other Layer 2 ecosystems by offering some unique rewards for people who participate in its network. If you're interested in learning about all the profit opportunities available through Mode’s network, check out this helpful guide.

 is an Ethereum Layer 2 network that makes it easier and more efficient to develop web3 projects. It uses a built-in rewards system that directly provides prizes to all people who build projects on Mode, or participate in its community in other ways.

, whose background is in economics. Ross previously created a DeFi growth consultancy, agency0x, and was the managing director of a blockchain marketing business called Hype Partners. Ross's work in the blockchain sphere encouraged him to start thinking about what made new crypto projects successful. Eventually, he decided to take his ideas and apply them to new economic systems that empower developers and encourage more equitable participation.

The Mode ecosystem arose out of a desire to create a more cooperative blockchain environment. Mode's founders noticed that most blockchain networks and projects aim to compete with each other, and tend to steal each other's users. While this does lead to some excellent projects gaining attention, it can also make it harder for innovative ideas to flourish.

The Mode team decided to apply the concepts of cooperative game theory to their blockchain network, rewarding contribution and cooperation and creating a system where everyone simultaneously profits. By rewarding developers for participating in its economic systems, Mode hopes to encourage network growth and allow a wide variety of blockchain projects to flourish.

The core functionalities of the Mode network run on Ethereum’s decentralized blockchain. As a Layer 2 network, Mode relies on Ethereum to maintain its security and process many of its transactions. Mode then includes a set of software and protocols that make it easier and faster for their clients to run projects. 

Mode’s underlying architecture is modular. Separate functionalities are divided into different layers. By handling aspects such as consensus and execution on their own separate chains, Mode becomes far more efficient. Its network also benefits from the inclusion of 

 technology. This free, open-source system provides excellent data compression, helping to further reduce fees and transaction times.

A variety of features seamlessly interact in Mode’s economic systems. Following are the core features that users can access.

The Layer 2 chain in the Mode ecosystem has all the core functionalities of a classic Layer 2 network. By allowing users to access a more scalable system, Mode’s network ensures that transactions are as affordable and scalable as possible. As users conduct transactions on the Layer 2 network, they earn points that can be exchanged for rewards. Mode’s Layer 2 also particularly focuses on development, offering many helpful tools that let developers seamlessly interact with the network and create new projects.

 are Layer 3 networks that provide developers with the option of creating application-specific chains. By allowing users to design their own chains for individual projects, the network provides significantly lower fees and sequencer fee sharing, which provides additional revenue to spur community growth.

Users with MODE tokens can choose to stake their assets as a way of participating in the network's economic systems. People who stake earn a multiplier on reward points, and they get to contribute to liquidity and help the network function properly.

Recently, Mode’s network announced the 

 to help developers flourish. Users can apply for assistance and grants to help them develop new projects. Shortly after introducing Mode Yield Accelerator, the network also announced that the accelerator would provide access to mentors from EigenLayer, 

, Renzo and many other popular blockchain projects.

As part of its mission to encourage cooperation between community members, Mode regularly runs 

. These token distributions are a method of rewarding developers with extra tokens beyond the ones they earn from day-to-day participation. Here's what you need to know about all the airdrops Mode has announced so far.

Airdrop Season 1 ran until May 5, 2024. The top 2,000 wallets by points within the Mode ecosystem received MODE tokens. Token distribution was in proportion to wallet rank, and users received a second batch of tokens if their first set remained in the system for 90 days. Airdrop claims will continue to be valid until Jun 5, 2024.

Airdrop Season 2 runs from May 5, 2024 to Sep 6, 2024. This airdrop will include 500 million MODE tokens. Users can earn points for tokens, based on how much money they have in the Mode ecosystem and to what extent they participate in 

 and DEX services through Mode. Airdrop participants can also earn points by paying transaction fees on Mode.

Mode spent most of 2023 designing and launching its system. Now that the blockchain network is live, the network is focusing on encouraging more people to use its ecosystem. Through its airdrops and other community rewards programs, Mode hopes to boost user adoption and empower developers. The project has plans to collaborate with a variety of other projects, such as 

, to help attract users to Mode’s network. 

Mode hasn't provided many details regarding plans to upgrade the technology behind its project any time soon, but it's possible the network may update its system in order to take advantage of the new 

The MODE token is an essential part of managing the Mode ecosystem. It's used for governance and is distributed as a type of user reward for certain behaviors. There are 

, with an initial circulating supply of 1.3 billion. All of these tokens will be distributed according to the following simple plan:

MODE is still a fairly new token, but there’s already a lot of speculation about its price. After briefly achieving an all-time high of $0.1477 when it debuted on May 7, 2024, MODE's price has now dropped to around $0.04. Some crypto analysts forecast slow yet steady growth for the rest of 2024. 

 and maintain an average price of around $0.085. DigitalCoinPrice is also positive, with its analysts 

 could reach highs of $0.0957 by the end of 2024 and $0.34 by 2030.

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

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

MODE may be a good option for investors who want a reliable crypto with the potential for some big price spikes. It’s been quite steady so far, and its utility within the Mode ecosystem will also help to stabilize prices. Mode is also getting a decent amount of positive press, and having many social media fans praising its crypto can help its price rise even further.

However, don't forget that all cryptocurrencies come with some inherent risk, especially when they're linked to a brand-new project. Mode still has to prove itself and stand out from other Ethereum Layer 2 networks. If something goes wrong within the Mode ecosystem, MODE prices are likely to fall. Investors need to 

Mode’s Ethereum Layer 2 network rewards contribution and boosts user adoption with its unique system. In addition to offering standard Layer 2 features like faster transaction times, Mode is also particularly focused on cooperation. Its reward points system ensures that everyone benefits from network growth. These promising rewards have already attracted quite a few web3 projects to the Mode ecosystem, so big things may be in store for the MODE token.

Mode (MODE): A Modular Ethereum L2 That Rewards Users

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards