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

Memes

Altcoins

Wall Street Memes is a new meme coin project that strives to challenge major Wall Street players by uniting small investors. Learn more about how it works here.

Screenshot_2023-06-08_at_2.11.10_PM.png

) and others, have had their day in the sun and supported financial gains for many people. These coins generally lack intrinsic value. Instead, their value is derived from the popularity of the project at the time. The newest meme coin on the scene, Wall Street Memes, may seem similar at first glance. However, unlike other meme coins launched to date, this project was born as part of a movement that’s already gained tremendous momentum.

Memes have been connecting people for years with their relatable, timely humor, and Wall Street Memes is harnessing that power. Specifically, Wall Street Memes uses humor and community to unite small investors who are fed up with business as usual on Wall Street. At the same time, it enables smaller investors to profit from the same capitalism-driven greed that has allowed big Wall Street investors to profit heavily over the years. 

Today, the Wall Street Memes community includes over a million followers, and the project benefits from more than 40 million monthly 

 to short-squeeze GameStop stock. Many believed the stock was undervalued, but some also wanted to inflict damage on major hedge funds that played a role in the 2007 market crash. Wall Street Memes was inspired by those who participated in this legendary event. Specifically, the project aims to allow individuals without 

 status to profit from capitalism-based greed in the same way that hedge funds and whales do.

As a new movement that's already gained considerable momentum, Wall Street Memes is tokenized by the WSM coin. The project describes WSM tokens as the ultimate statement of its mission: those who hold the tokens are fighting back against greedy capitalists. More than that, WSM tokens play a critical role in the mechanics of the Wall Street Memes project by facilitating meme trades.

Wall Street Memes offers several features that collectively serve the project’s mission. These include the WSM token 

, the Bulls NFT collection and the project’s merchandise. 

 is currently live, and more than 16,000 participants have submitted entries as of Jun 8, 2023. Altogether, five winners will be announced around six months later, and each of them will benefit from a $10,000 prize. There are seven ways to enter:

You can also purchase WSM tokens without participating in the Wall Street Memes airdrop. Choose your preferred 

 for a purchase on a mobile device. Other crypto wallet types are supported as well. Once your wallet is connected, you can buy WSM tokens with 

 features 10,000 unique digital assets that focus on Wall Street in a creative way. Because of the project’s singular utility, the rarity of each 

 will increase over time. Bull NFT owners receive access to sister collections. These are the Wall Street Assets collection and the 

WSB merchandise will serve a dual purpose. First, it will unite the Wall Street Memes community. Secondly, it will raise awareness for the brand and its mission. Numerous products are available that are both trendy and statement-making, such as various styles of T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts and mugs. These products are available through the 

The presale for WSM tokens began on May 26, 2023. By the ninth stage (out of 30 total), the value was $0.0274, and at this stage, the price is $0.028 (as of Jun 9, 2023). Altogether, the circulating supply will be 2 billion, and this full amount will be traded and held by the Wall Street Memes community. Fifty percent of the total supply is allocated for the Wall Street Memes presale, and another 30% will be used for community rewards. The final 20% will be used for liquidity. WSM tokens can be used to purchase and trade NFTs.

The Wall Street Memes team is committed to bringing the project online through three phases of development. The first phase involves creating a secure smart contract that will be the foundation of the project. During this phase, the development of the community will be established by harnessing the power of social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Telegram and others. Branding and marketing for Wall Street Memes will also receive concentrated effort, and merchandise is available to take branding to the next level.

In the second phase, the Wall Street Memes team will launch the WSM coin. In addition, WSM will be listed on 

. Partnerships will be strategically established with influencers, media and others, and will be leveraged to enhance Wall Street Memes brand awareness.

The third phase focuses on expanding the exchanges that list WSM tokens. Special benefits for the WSM community will be announced, with these community rewards including interactive experiences, exclusive content and more. The team will be focusing on reaching a $1 billion market cap and getting WSM listed on the most popular CEXs.

Some investors shy away from purchasing meme tokens, which lack utility and intrinsic value. Their value is driven purely by investor sentiment. However, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (

) were among the top-performing assets in the 2021 bull run. Pepe (PEPE) assumed this position in the 2023 run. 

While there are several meme coin projects jockeying to be next in line, Wall Street Memes stands apart from other projects and is well-positioned for success. It possesses a true mission that aligns with sentiments shared by many smaller investors. As a result, investors can truly get behind Wall Street Memes. With its excellent marketing, and branding efforts already underway, the project is poised for success.

Nonetheless, it’s recommended that cryptocurrency investors not invest funds that they can’t afford to lose. This project may be positioned to skyrocket, but there’s always a chance it could collapse. Before you proceed with an investment in WSM, 

Wall Street Memes is well positioned to be the next big meme coin, following in the steps of Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and others. With everything from branded merchandise to a strong mission that the everyday investor can rally behind, the popularity of Wall Street Memes has increased rapidly in a short period of time. This is a new crypto project deserving of attention, and one to consider getting involved in early on to optimize potential gains.

Wall Street Memes (WSM): The Meme Coin With Over $5 Million Raised

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards