Ethereum surged 29% this week, breaking a 10-week downtrend and catching short sellers off guard with $400M liquidated. 

The S&P 500 extended its rally with a nine-day winning streak, its longest since 2004, as optimism over potential trade deals and upcoming Fed and earnings updates lifted sentiment. Gold rose to $3,245 on trade uncertainty and Fed rate cut hopes. CoinDesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, fell 1.50% in the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin and Ether dropped 0.10% and 0.51%, respectively. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is AI16Z, which surged 7.0% after Bonsai's smart media protocol integrated with Eliza to empower agent-driven social content creation.

elizaOS (AI16Z), launched in October 2024, formerly ai16z, is a Solana-based DApp that uses a DAO and an AI agent, "Marc AIndreessen," to manage community-driven investments in tech and crypto projects. 

, lets developers create agent-driven social media scripts and templates using ElizaOS plugins. The Bonsai Client, its first implementation, enables easy deployment of these smart media agents on platforms like Lens. Builders can explore these tools and compete for prizes in the Lens Spring Hackathon.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

Ethereum surged 29% this week, breaking a 10-week downtrend and catching short sellers off guard with $400M liquidated. Despite muted ETF flows and neutral derivatives sentiment, ETH’s dominance remains unshaken—boasting $64B in TVL, dwarfing Solana, BNB Chain, and Tron combined. With fresh momentum from the recent pectra upgrades and Trump distancing from rival altcoins, all eyes are now on a potential push toward $2,700. 

BTC spot ETFs saw $920.9M in net inflows this week, driven by $1.09B into non-GBTC funds despite $171.5M outflows from GBTC. Since inception, total net inflows stand at $41.1B.

 are now live and claimable as a small bonus for users farming the upcoming Aster (AST) airdrop. By depositing BNB to mint asBNB, users can start earning points toward both the main airdrop and future ecosystem rewards. Optional perp trading can boost points further, but simply holding asBNB is enough to qualify.

Beginner

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Ethereum outperforms with a 20% rally as fresh capital flows in and undervaluation signals flash

Our monthly report delves into insights from options volatility to inspire your next crypto move.

: April 2025 saw BTC's implied volatility surge above 75% due to tariff chaos, but it collapsed to 35% within a week, indicating a surprising short-term drop in volatility expectations despite ongoing macro uncertainty.

: BTC's return above $100K was met with muted enthusiasm in the derivatives market, suggesting that 

traders no longer view this level as a significant psychological barrier, and the rally isn’t likely to be sustained.

: ETH significantly outperformed BTC with a 23% rally, leading to increased demand for short-dated calls and a positive shift in the options market, highlighting renewed bullish sentiment.

: Historical trends suggest a potential summer lull in volatility in store for BTC, raising questions about whether this pattern will repeat in 2025 amidst ongoing macroeconomic challenges.

Bitcoin’s volatility plunges in late April

April 2025 witnessed significant volatility in the cryptocurrency market, particularly influenced by US trade policies. As President Trump announced steep reciprocal tariffs, the crypto landscape experienced sharp fluctuations. Bitcoin (BTC) initially demonstrated resilience, despite widespread sell-offs in equities and the US dollar, only to succumb to a decline from $88K to $75K by early April. This period was characterized by a dramatic rise in implied volatility that peaked above 75% as traders sought protection through short-dated puts. However, as the tariffs faced moderation, implied volatility plummeted to 35% by mid-April, marking the lowest level since early March.

Interestingly, while short-tenor volatility collapsed, 

the back end of BTC's term structure remained elevated, signaling that market participants expect heightened volatility in the mid-term

. Amidst this backdrop, realized volatility fell below the five-year seasonal average, paralleling similar trends in previous years and suggesting a 

. The historical pattern contrasts that BTC often experiences a rebound in volatility heading into May, raising questions about whether this trend will persist.

Subdued derivative response suggests Bitcoin rally might not endure

The market's reaction to BTC's resurgence above the $100K threshold was notably subdued compared to previous instances. While BTC rallied 20% following the initial tariff sell-off, the derivatives market displayed a muted response. The 25-delta put/call skew, a measure of market sentiment, indicated only a slight bias toward out-of-the-money calls, contrasting sharply with sentiment previously when BTC first breached the $100K mark in December 2024. This lack of exuberance suggests that traders no longer view $100K as a significant inflection point, raising concerns about the sustainability of the rally. 

Meanwhile, funding rates and implied volatility — though still bullish — didn’t reach the extremes observed in earlier months, indicating more cautious market sentiment. The relationship between BTC's spot price and implied volatility suggests that although traders are optimistic, they’re waiting for BTC to approach previous all-time highs before adjusting their volatility expectations.

Ethereum's option data points to further rally

In stark contrast to BTC, Ethereum (ETH) displayed remarkable resilience and outperformed major cryptocurrencies, gaining 23% overnight following favorable trade news. This rally catalyzed a surge in demand for short-dated calls, pushing front-end volatility expectations significantly higher. The response from the derivatives market was robust, inverting the term structure and indicating renewed bullish sentiment toward ETH, even as it’s trading well below its all-time high.

The ETH options market exhibited a shift from neutral to slightly negative skew, to a 10% bias favoring out-of-the-money calls, reflecting the market's confidence in ETH's potential to regain lost ground. Despite overall macroeconomic uncertainty, the demand for ETH options suggests that traders are optimistic about Ether’s future price movements.

In conclusion, April 2025 highlighted the complex interplay between macroeconomic factors and cryptocurrency market dynamics. While BTC faced challenges in eliciting strong responses from derivatives markets upon recrossing the $100K threshold, ETH's performance indicated a divergence in market sentiment. As traders navigate the evolving landscape, the potential for seasonal volatility patterns and the influence of macroeconomic developments will remain critical factors in shaping future market expectations.

Advanced

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Bybit X Block Scholes options volatility report (April 2025): Data suggests Bitcoin rally might not endure, but Ether sees further upside

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.

After mostly trading sideways at the end of April 2025, a US-UK trade deal sparked a crypto rally. BTC surged past $100K for the first time since February, but it’s ETH's performance that captured the derivatives market's attention. 

A 23% increase in ETH's spot price led to an inverted term structure and a spike in front-end volatility. The put/call skew for ETH shifted from a bearish bias to a nearly 10% skew toward OTM calls. Other sentiment indicators, such as perp funding rates and futures yield, also supported the rally. In contrast, while BTC's funding rates and skew have increased, its implied volatility remains low at 40%, over 30 points below ETH's 7-day implied volatility.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

ETH’s record performance since 2021 was propelled by positive term structure

ETH has significantly outperformed BTC and the top 10 cryptocurrencies, marking its largest single-day gain since May 2021. The options market has reflected this enthusiasm, with implied volatility for short tenors rising sharply and inverting ETH’s term structure, thus contrasting with BTC's muted, positively sloped structure. The 7-day tenor for ETH is now trading at a 33-point premium over that for BTC. 

While puts dominate BTC's open interest, ETH is seeing the opposite trend. On May 8, 2025, options volumes surged over $120M, more than double the typical monthly volume, with $60M more in calls than puts. ETH now boasts a positive futures curve and funding rates, as well as a strong skew toward OTM calls.

ETH sees exceptionally bullish put/call skew

ETH's substantial outperformance in the current crypto rally has led to bullish sentiment in its derivatives markets. Funding rates have surged, futures yields are strongly positive and the put/call skew has shifted significantly toward OTM calls, now close to 10%. This starkly contrasts with early April, when the skew was 20% toward OTM puts. Although ETH has underperformed (relative to BTC and other "ETH killers"), it has rebounded in this rally, with the ETH/BTC ratio rising after spending most of the year declining.

Open interest for Bitcoin options increased, with implied volatility remaining suppressed

The announcement of the new US administration's first trade deal, nearly 30 days into Trump's 90-day tariff pause, jolted crypto markets, pushing BTC back up above $100K. Surprisingly, implied volatility has remained suppressed, failing to invert BTC's term structure, with front-end volatility trading at around an 18-month low of 35-40%. On May 8, 2025, options volumes surged, with call volume reaching $189M, reversing last week's trend of higher put volumes. Meanwhile, open interest rose steadily to exceed $300M, the highest level this month, but remains significantly larger for puts than for calls despite the price increase.

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Bybit X Block Scholes crypto derivatives analytics report (May 9, 2025): Ether’s put/call skew turns remarkably more bullish than Bitcoin’s

This article explores how Sign works, its flagship products (such as TokenTable, SignPass and EthSign), its native token (SIGN) and how to trade SIGN on Bybit.

Sign is an omnichain attestation infrastructure that empowers users and developers to verify real-world claims on-chain. Built for a more transparent and decentralized future, it eliminates the need to “just trust” and enables everyone to verify with cryptographic proof.

This article explores how Sign works, its flagship products (such as TokenTable and EthSign), its native token (SIGN) and how to trade SIGN on Bybit.

 is an omnichain attestation protocol designed to make it easy for anyone to verify the authenticity of any claim — 

. Whether it’s a document, credential or user identity, Sign transforms traditional trust models into verifiable, cryptographic attestations. 

Sign’s mission is to replace outdated, opaque validation systems with transparent, 

 proof — enabling a future where “verify” replaces “trust.” Through tools like schema registries and digital signatures, Sign empowers users to bring accountability and integrity to digital interactions.

Sign is developed by the team behind EthSign, a 

-native e-signature and agreement platform. Its core team brings deep experience in 

 development and cross-chain integrations.

The project is backed by top-tier investors, including Sequoia Capital China (now known as HongShan Capital Group), Mirana Ventures, HashKey Capital and Hack VC.

This strategic funding positions Sign as a foundational layer in the web3 infrastructure stack.

Sign allows users to create attestations — cryptographically signed statements that prove the validity of claims, such as credentials, achievements or actions. These digital proofs can be verified by anyone at any time, making them tamperproof and transparent.

Sign’s key technical elements include a schema registry that ensures consistent data formatting, digital signatures proving authenticity, and on- and off-chain attestations with support for revocation or updates

This system acts like a programmable layer for web3, bringing a new level of trust to identity, credentials and data exchange.

TokenTable is Sign’s flagship token distribution platform. It helps projects unlock, distribute and manage tokens transparently and securely at scale.

It uses Sign’s attestation engine to verify token unlocks, 

 and vesting schedules, ensuring traceable, auditable token flows.

SignPass is a blockchain-based identity solution that brings real-world credentials on-chain. One notable implementation is the Sierra Leone PR Card, used for the world’s first government-approved on-chain permanent residency program.

SignPass offers encrypted on-chain records for easy 

 verification, physical ID issuance for daily identity use and streamlined digital application systems for cross-border access.

It showcases the way blockchain can modernize public sector services worldwide.

EthSign is a decentralized contract signing platform that lets users create, sign and store legally binding agreements directly on-chain. It removes intermediaries and ensures documents are immutable and accessible.

EthSign reinforces Sign’s mission by bringing traditional documentation into the realm of verifiable web3 attestations.

The SIGN token is the native utility token powering the Sign ecosystem. It’s used for:

The total supply is capped at 10 billion SIGN, with 1.2 billion tokens in circulation. While the fully diluted valuation (FDV) sits above $746 million as of May 7, the circulating market cap is approximately $89.6 million. SIGN continues to gain traction across exchanges and developer networks.

SIGN is available for trading on Bybit via Spot trading and as a USDT Perpetual contract. Bybit offers up to 75x leverage for the SIGNUSDT Perpetual contract and supports secure, high-liquidity spot trading.

Start exploring the future of attestations with SIGN on Bybit today.

Intermediate

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Sign (SIGN): Web3 protocol for trustless attestation

GameFi

Altcoins

Vulcan Forged (PYR) is a blockchain-based community gaming hub that runs on Ethereum and Polygon that develops its own games, supports third-party game developers, incubates DApps and enables NFT trading in its native ecosystem.

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The play-to-earn (P2E) gaming space is growing at an astounding rate, with a forecasted estimated worth of 

. While there are already quite a few big players in the space such as 

, Vulcan Forged has captured the attention of many avid P2E gamers. 

If you're wondering what Vulcan Forged is all about, this article will explain everything you need to know about the project, its functions, its native token and its investment potential.

 (PYR) is a blockchain-based community gaming hub that runs on 

. The platform develops its own games, supports third-party game developers, incubates DApps and enables NFT trading in its native ecosystem. 

Vulcan Forged is overseen by the Vulcan Forged LTD and the Vulcan Foundation. The Vulcan Forged LTD is in charge of game development and business operations, while the 

 manages token governance, issuance and sales.

Vulcan Forged has over ten games and DApps in its ecosystem, as well as a flourishing NFT marketplace. Its main game is 

, an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) game inspired by Greco-Roman mythology.

 is to own and upgrade land plots, which are represented by NFTs. These land plots start at Level 1 and can be purchased in the game-native NFT marketplace. Players can move up the seven levels, reaching a higher rank and unlocking new in-game features, tools and collectibles.

PYR is the primary utility token of the platform, used for buying NFTs in the Vulcan Forged Marketplace and staking in-game assets and land plots, as well as staking in VulcanDex, a decentralized exchange (DEX) for exchanging gaming tokens.

LAVA is the secondary utility token of the Vulcan Forged platform. It’s a play-to-earn in-game currency in all Vulcan Forged games, such as 

. There are several ways to earn LAVA tokens: Either winning matches or upgrading your land, or easily boost your LAVA tokens by staking your PYR tokens in your wallet through the 

After earning your LAVA tokens, you can use them to buy materials and in-game assets or upgrade land. LAVA tokens can also be traded for PYR, USDC and more tokens on VulcanDex.

PYR, the main utility token of Vulcan Forged, is an ERC-20/MATIC token that players can use across all games. It powers the project's whole DApp ecosystem. PYR can be used to perform the following functions:

The fees from all PYR transactions are distributed to a reward pool from which staking participants can claim their staking rewards.

The PYR token is available on the Ethereum and Polygon mainnets. While the project was initially launched on Ethereum, most features use the Polygon version. By porting PYR to Polygon, a Layer 2 scaling solution, gas fees have significantly lowered. Consequently, the platform executes high-speed transactions seamlessly without high costs.

Note that PYR|ETH and PYR|MATIC are different, so do practice caution when you make your transactions to prevent an irreversible loss if you use the wrong token version. You can easily convert PYR from one token version to another with Polygon's bridging service.

Below are the key features of the Vulcan Forged ecosystem.

, players can buy and own land plots which are available as NFTs on parts of the map. Vulcan Forged users can unlock more features and tools and gather Vulcanites (pet collectibles) to level up in this virtual world. Players can also earn PYR rewards as passive income by staking their in-game assets.

 are Land, Vulcanites, Gods and Items. Players can use the in-game Vulcan Forged Marketplace, Vulcan Market, to buy and sell these acquired assets.

Players can also build quests and adventures in the 

e, scavenge for NFTs and fight against other Vulcanites.

Vulcan Forged Marketplace is divided into three NFT marketplaces – Vulcan Market, Agora and Cedalion. The main Vulcan Forged NFT Marketplace, 

, which allows for quick auctions and batch sales. Keep in mind that the Vulcan Forged NFT marketplace only executes transactions in PYR|MATIC. 

(DEX) that allows you to swap gaming and cryptocurrencies such as PYR, LAVA, ETH, MATIC, UDSC and more. You can also provide liquidity to the DEX and earn 0.2% fees on all trades proportional to your pool share. The DEX also lets you stake and farm tokens to earn more interest on your tokens.

Vulcan Forged (PYR) has a total and max supply of 50 million PYR tokens and a current circulating supply of around 24 million. PYR is a deflationary token; 10% of every transaction is allocated to reward pools and 5% is used to buy back and lock supply. Currently (September 13, 2022), it has a live market cap of $94.71 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $25.66 million.

The total supply of PYR tokens has been distributed as follows:

As PYR tokens are used for staking within the 

 game, 10 million PYR are allocated to be released, over four years, in a reward pool for those who have a stake in the 

Vulcan Forged launched in mid-April 2021 at around $2. It traded sideways for several months before seeing an uptick in price from mid-September, experiencing a rally that culminated in its highest price ever at $49.01 0n December 1, 2021, during the crypto bull run. 

The crypto crash followed soon after, and the high PYR price was unable to hold, rapidly sliding to a low of just around $8 within one month. While the PYR price rose to almost $20 three months later in April 2022, this high price was again short-lived and declined to around $4 in May. Since then, the price of Vulcan Forged has settled in a $3 to $4 range, currently trading at $4.06 as of the time of writing (September 13, 2022).

Despite the relatively low price Vulcan Forged is trading at, many price experts have a positive outlook, expecting the Vulcan Forged (PYR) price to rise steadily.

 to go past the $10 mark by 2024, and to double to over $20 by 2026. 

e to reach $12 by 2024, and around $15 by 2026. Based on historical data which shows an 11.34% increase in price in the past year, CoinCodex is also bullish on Vulcan Forged, predicting a rise to a 

Is Vulcan Forged (PYR) a Good Investment?

There are very few blockchain gaming platforms that can beat Vulcan Forged in terms of its ecosystem’s variety of features, including a game studio, DApp incubator, NFT marketplace and DEX. Its historical performance also underlines its potential to be among the top GameFi cryptos. Moreover, the Vulcan Forged team has showcased their efforts in making blockchain gaming affordable for all as they shift from Ethereum to Polygon, which offers almost zero gas fees and fast settlement times in a bid to solve Ethereum’s scalability problem.

 are a real concern for all cryptocurrencies. Vulcan Forged suffered a security breach on December 13, 2021, in which 

 were stolen. While it may be quick to recover with a relaunch of its tokens, this incident serves as a grim reminder that all investors must be cautious before purchasing any crypto or NFT assets. The wise approach is to never invest money that one cannot afford to lose.

As an all-in-one stop for all GameFi features, including NFT marketplaces and a DEX, Vulcan Forged has definitely made its mark on the blockchain gaming space. Moreover, the transition to the Polygon network has only increased the platform’s appeal as transaction costs fall to almost zero. This signals a serious commitment from the Vulcan Forged team to make its games more widely available and user-friendly for all players, making Vulcan Forged a GameFi project to watch as P2E games grow in popularity. 

Vulcan Forged (PYR): A GameFi Experience to Remember

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