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 initially resisting US president Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, crypto markets joined the global sell-off, with BTC falling from $87K on April 2 to a low of $74K. BTC’s term structure was inverted again before easing, while ETH’s term structure remained inverted. Meanwhile, short-term BTC volatility skews favored OTM puts, reflecting more bearish sentiment than during the Q1 2023 US banking crisis. However, volatility levels decreased after Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs (excluding those on China), leading to a significant rally in spot prices.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

BTC open interest declined substantially this week

Bybit’s largest perpetual swap markets initially remained stable during the broader market sell-off and tariff reactions, recovering from the dip after the 

. However, Trump’s recent announcement and subsequent pause of near-unilateral import tariffs significantly impacted these markets, leading to notable declines in open interest for BTC and ETH, which have fallen sharply from their late March highs.

After a brief period of positive funding rates, BTC’s perpetual swap market fluctuated between positive and negative sentiment, indicating traders were hesitant to commit to a strong directional move (similar to trends in options markets). This changed when President Trump announced a 90-day tariff relief, leading to positive jumps in funding rates. Altcoins displayed a similar pattern, with funding rates alternately positive and negative before rising following the tariff announcement.

During the April 6–7, 2025 sell-off, traders sought downside protection, as BTC's spot price fell to $75K in reaction to President Trump’s tariff announcement. The high volume of put options relative to calls indicates strong demand for this protection. Meanwhile, the US's reciprocal tariffs caused a significant inversion in BTC’s at-the-money volatility term structure, which, although it has eased, remains inverted. Additionally, there‘s a stronger skew toward OTM puts at short tenors as compared to the March 2023 US banking crisis. Put open interest has surged over the past week, reflecting extremely bearish sentiment for both the near and long terms.

Advanced

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Bybit X Block Scholes crypto derivatives analytics report (Apr 9, 2025): Tariffs bring substantial volatility at a level similar to that of the Q1 2023 US banking crisis

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can stake and mint Lombard LBTCv on Bybit Web3 Staking with the Bybit Web3 Seed Phrase Wallet. 

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can stake BTC to mint 

Please note that in order to get started, you’ll first need to download the Bybit App on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. 

How to stake and mint LBTCv with Bybit Web3 Staking

: Launch the Bybit App on your mobile device and tap on the 

: Deposit BTC into your preferred Bybit Web3 Seed Phrase Wallet BTC address.

: Once you’ve deposited BTC into your wallet address, tap on the 

drop-down and select the BTC address into which you’ve deposited BTC. 

: Input the exact amount of BTC you’d like to stake, and tap on 

 and sign the message to allow this exact amount of BTC to be staked.

 page. Ensure that the amount of BTC is exactly the same as you wish to stake, and tap on 

: Tap on the icon located at the upper-right corner of the screen to check your transaction history.

: You’ll receive LBTCv in three progressive stages:

: Once you’ve received LBTCv, you can check your points (updated every hour).

If you wish to stake more BTC, simply repeat Steps 7 through 12. However, please

that you won’t be able to stake more BTC as long as you haven’t yet received your LBTCv.

To redeem your LBTC, simply scroll down the 

button. Then, wait three days for the successful redemption of LBTC.

If you wish to cancel your redemption, you can do so within these three days.

Beginner

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How to stake and mint Lombard LBTCv with Bybit Web3 Staking

A Chainlink Spot ETF would bridge TradFi and crypto, offering a simplified way to gain exposure to LINK without the complexities of digital wallets or exchanges.

There's been a recent surge in spot ETF applications as investors look for ways to sidestep the rigid frameworks of traditional finance. The success of 

 — drawing billions in inflows — signals a major shift in the way institutions approach crypto investments. 

 networks, is in line for its own Spot ETF. The proposed fund promises a direct, hassle-free way to invest in Chainlink (LINK), eliminating the need to deal with complex 

 and exchanges. This article explores what a Chainlink Spot ETF is, how it would work, its current market impact and what its potential approval could mean for investors and the broader crypto landscape.

A Chainlink Spot ETF is an exchange-traded fund, backed by Chainlink (LINK) tokens, that would directly track the market price of LINK, a cryptocurrency powering decentralized oracle networks, thus enabling investors to gain exposure without directly holding the asset itself.

 (ETF) would offer investors direct exposure to LINK’s price movements without requiring the investors to handle the digital asset directly. 

Authorized Participants (APs), typically large financial institutions or market makers approved by the ETF issuer, play a central role in maintaining liquidity and aligning the ETF’s market price with its net asset value (NAV). These entities facilitate the creation and redemption of ETF shares by acquiring LINK tokens from exchanges or over-the-counter markets, and transferring them to the ETF’s custodian, a regulated entity responsible for secure storage. 

In exchange, the ETF issuer provides APs with newly created shares, which represent fractional ownership of the underlying assets. The shares are then introduced to secondary markets for investors to trade.

Creation, redemption and listing of shares

When redeeming shares, APs collect ETF shares from the market and return them to the issuer, receiving LINK tokens from the custodian in return. These tokens can be sold on the open market or held, depending upon the AP’s strategy. This creation-redemption process enables an 

 mechanism that stabilizes the ETF’s price, relative to its underlying assets. 

If the ETF is trading at a premium to NAV, APs create and sell shares to capitalize on the price difference, pushing the market price downward. Conversely, if the ETF is trading at a discount, APs redeem shares, reducing supply and driving the price upward. This dynamic ensures that the ETF’s market price remains closely tied to LINK’s actual value. 

Shares are listed on exchanges and traded like traditional stocks, integrating seamlessly into existing portfolios while offering potential tax efficiencies. The structure combines the accessibility of conventional investments with the benefits of cryptocurrency exposure, appealing to those seeking indirect participation in LINK’s market movements through a regulated and familiar framework. For investors, the ETF will simplify exposure to Chainlink by eliminating the need to manage 

 or wallets, or navigate complex crypto exchanges. 

The Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF, which includes Chainlink (LINK), has gained attention as a significant development in the crypto ETF space. This ETF, 

 in February 2025 and currently provides exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

 with the SEC on Mar 14, 2025 to expand the ETF's scope to include additional cryptocurrencies like LINK, ADA and SOL. This application remains the sole filing for a Spot Link ETF (as of Mar 20, 2025). While the SEC has approved the fund's initial structure, its response to the inclusion of Chainlink and other assets remains pending.

The SEC has historically been cautious about approving spot cryptocurrency ETFs, due to concerns about market manipulation and investor protection. However, the approval of multi-asset ETFs such as NCIQ signals a potential shift in regulatory attitudes. Market sentiment has been cautiously optimistic, with investors viewing these developments as a step toward broader acceptance and integration of cryptocurrencies into traditional financial systems. The timeline for the approval of Chainlink Spot ETFs remains uncertain, but growing institutional interest and regulatory advancements suggest progress in the near future.

Current impact of Chainlink Spot ETF applications on the crypto market

The anticipation surrounding Chainlink Spot ETF applications is clearly influencing market sentiment. Although Chainlink's price hasn’t yet surged dramatically, increased investor interest and speculation about potential ETF approvals have boosted overall optimism. 

Data from LINK and CoinGlass reveals that 

 have fallen to 138.8 million coins, the lowest since September 2024, indicating that investors are holding onto their tokens in self-custody wallets instead of selling. This trend reflects a growing belief that SEC approval for a Spot LINK ETF could substantially boost the token’s price. In addition, Chainlink’s role as one of the largest oracle networks and its innovative cross-chain interoperability protocol for asset tokenization further reinforce this positive outlook.

What will it mean if a Chainlink Spot ETF application is approved?

The approval of a Chainlink Spot ETF would have some significant implications for both the cryptocurrency market and traditional financial sectors, as follows.

If you’re looking to capture the market and trade LINK tokens, Bybit offers the 

A Chainlink Spot ETF would connect cryptocurrency with traditional finance by allowing investors to track LINK’s price without the complications of managing digital wallets. Specifically, it would keep the ETF's price in line with LINK’s market value, increase liquidity and attract institutional investors. Approval of a Chainlink Spot ETF could drive LINK's price higher, similar to trends seen with Bitcoin ETFs, and confirm Chainlink’s importance in the crypto ecosystem, encouraging its use across various industries. 

However, investors need to be cautious of potential short-term price swings and changes in regulations. Overall, this ETF would make crypto investing simpler for a broader audience, strengthening Chainlink’s position and supporting wider acceptance of blockchain technology in the financial world.

Intermediate

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Chainlink Spot ETF: A gateway to decentralized oracle investment

Huma Finance 2.0, a composable platform built on Solana, introduces real-world yield derived from global payment financing.

The S&P 500 fell 3.5% as renewed U.S.-China trade tensions erased gains from Trump’s tariff pause. Investors now await consumer sentiment data and bank earnings. Gold jumped 2.6% to a record $3,171 amid U.S.-China trade tensions, weaker dollar, and rising Fed rate cut bets. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, are down by 1.50%, with Bitcoin and Ether down 3.29% and 8.79% respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is ZRC, up 34.3%, followed by Zircuit's partnership with Diffuse Protocol to enhance the DeFi ecosystem with real-time data and secure cross-chain interoperability.

Zircuit (ZRC), founded in 2021, is a hybrid Layer 2 blockchain combining optimistic and ZK rollups, offering fast transactions, low costs, and strong security through AI-driven monitoring. EVM-compatible and designed for DeFi, it supports staking and asset transfers via its Liquidity Hub and secure native bridge. Zircuit has 

 with Diffuse Protocol to enhance its platform. Diffuse provides real-time verifiable data feeds, trustless cross-chain data streams, and restaking of assets with collateral abstraction, further strengthening Zircuit's AI-powered hybrid zkEVM and boosting its DeFi ecosystem.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

, a composable platform built on Solana, introduces real-world yield derived from global payment financing. The platform offers two options: Classic Mode for stable USDC yield and Maxi Mode for increased rewards through Huma Feathers. Through the $PST token, users can engage with DeFi protocols, swap tokens, and use them as collateral. Huma Finance has already processed over $3.8 billion in transactions, providing reliable yields sourced from payment-financing fees instead of market speculation. Huma 2.0 aims to bring a new liquidity model to DeFi, offering a more stable alternative to traditional financial cycles.

Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $149.5M in net outflows, with $44.6M from GBTC and $104.9M from other ETFs.

 has raised an additional $10M in its Series B round, bringing total funding to $35.5M with backing from a16z and other top investors. Users can boost their airdrop points by joining Towns, especially higher-priced ones, and by engaging through daily actions like tipping, inviting friends, and participating in different communities.

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Huma Finance 2.0 launches on Solana, introducing real-world yield and composable DeFi integration

Investing

Trading

Learn how to trade and invest smartly with the Dow Theory: a form of technical analysis that's older than candlestick analysis.

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 framework based on what Charles Henry Dow wrote about market theory. Dow was the founder and editor of The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of the American leading stock index, Dow Jones & Company. 

Charles Dow didn’t record his ideas as a theory 

, but after his death other writers accumulated his thoughts and refined his views into Dow Theory. Now, Dow Theory is one of the basic concepts of technical analysis that’s used in financial markets, including the modern cryptocurrency market.

This article breaks down Dow theory and the different stages of the market, based on Dow’s work. Moreover, we’ll share some practical chart reading techniques based on Dow Theory that can help investors trade any crypto asset.

Dow Theory is the most common and basic form of technical analysis related to trading any financial instrument and commodity in an open market. Charles Dow developed his theories in a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal, which he founded in 1889. 

In 1882, three prominent financial journalists — Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser — founded a financial newspaper named Dow Jones & Company. The newspaper’s main goal was to provide an unbiased analysis of the stock market. Moreover, Dow and his fellow reporters wanted to create a market average of selected stocks in the transportation sector that later became the Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJTA).

In 1896, Dow developed the first average of industrial stocks, known as the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA). Nowadays, the DJIA functions as a strong indicator of the U.S. stock market’s health. Later on, in 1889, the three journalists’ daily stock summary — entitled the 

became The Wall Street Journal, popularizing the stock market

Dow Theory is mainly used for predicting the direction of a trend by simply observing how the DJIA and DJTA indices move. If the two indices move in the same direction by making a series of higher lows, followed by consecutive higher highs, the trend is considered bullish.

Conversely, Dow Theory states that the market is in a downtrend if one of its averages breaks below a previous important low and is followed by a similar decline in other averages.

Overall, the Dow Theory that we see in the present market has been developed by many contributors in its long history of more than 100 years. In the modern world, this concept is still applied to trading cryptocurrencies and their derivatives.

How Dow Theory Works: The Six Basic Tenets

Dow Theory comprises a set of rules that guides investors in framing the market. These six basic tenets of Dow Jones may help investors make more accurate trading decisions during both 

Dow broadly categorized market trends into three types, depending on their duration.

The above image is of a BTC/USDT daily chart in which the primary trend is bullish. Within the bullish trend, there is some bearish correction marked as a secondary trend.

The primary trend includes the following phases:

According to the efficient market hypothesis (

), the current price of an asset reflects all publicly available news. This means that even if an individual doesn’t analyze associated market information, the asset will follow the sentiment resulting from the latest news. Therefore, investors should consider future potential or failure based on both reactive and proactive news. That said, there is no guarantee that the market will follow sentiment generated by the most recent news events.

In an efficient market, the price of a crypto asset will react immediately after salient news is released, reflecting the impact of that news on market sentiment

This principle states that Dow’s industrial and transportation-based averages should match direction. 

The concept behind this thinking is that the indices which come from the production and selling of goods are correlated. For example, transportation needs to deliver produced goods from warehouses. Therefore, if transportation stocks become weaker, this will cause industrial stocks to fall as well.

Ideally, the industrial and transportation averages should confirm a stable market sentiment by moving in tandem. If one of the indices moves higher while the other one moves lower, this produces a divergence, considered a possible precursor to a reversal of the current market trend.

However, in the present world, businesses don’t use railroads to deliver goods. Instead, they use air, sea, etc. Even tech companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google might not need such deliveries. In this case, investors can use other indices like the S&P 500, FTSE 100 or NASDAQ 100 to discern the market’s direction.

The above image shows the correlation between the DJIA and S&P 500. They’re moving in sync, which means they’re positively correlated.

Trading volume toward the primary trend should be high from the very beginning, and should decrease if the price moves against it. Higher volume indicates that a large number of people are joining the trend, increasing its stability.

On the other hand, low volume against a major trend signifies that there’s weaker market participation with lower probability of trades.

According to Dow Theory, a primary trend will continue until there’s a major event that shifts market sentiment in the opposite direction. However, the primary trend should always be given the benefit of the doubt during potentially temporary reversals.

The above image of a BTC/USDT daily chart shows the price moving up within a strong uptrend, even if there is a 30% to 50% sell-off. 

This demonstrates the concept of opening a trading position toward the primary trend, and ignoring any opportunity to trade against it.

How to Apply Dow Theory in Crypto Markets: Primary and Secondary Trends

Dow theory is based on 100-year-old principles. Therefore, many investors question effectiveness in modern financial markets, particularly regarding cryptocurrency.

Today financial markets are powered by high-frequency trading algorithms, but behind the market’s formation the human brain retains a strong logic. Therefore, Dow Theory can still be applied to cryptocurrency markets, though investors should use it differently.

The DJTA isn’t relevant in the present world, where tech stocks have replaced the DJTA with the NASDAQ 100. Therefore, we can’t use the DJTA in conjunction with the DJIA, but the concept of reading the larger market trend remains the same.

Let’s apply Dow Theory to the crypto market in order to find a profitable price direction.

First, investors should find the primary trend. For a cryptocurrency market, finding the primary trend is easy. This is because the cryptocurrency market is very young compared to the traditional forex market, and most of the major cryptocurrencies start out with a bullish bias.

For the BTC/USDT chart below, the overall primary market is still bullish, creating swing highs from the very beginning.

The above image is a daily BTC/USDT chart in which the primary price trend is bullish, and the secondary trend is bearish.

According to Dow Theory, we need to make trades toward the primary trend only. In this case, investors should wait for the secondary trend to end. The bearish secondary trend will end once the price moves above the most recent swing high, as shown in the image below.

The above image shows how the price moves down in the second wave, but recovers immediately after breaking above the most recent upward swing. As a result, the price moves up with impulsive bullish pressure.

How to Apply Dow Theory in Crypto Markets: Accumulation and Distribution

Besides considering primary and secondary trends, investors should include the accumulation and distribution phases, with support from volume data, in order to obtain a more precise trading entry.

In the above daily BTC/USDT chart, the buy entry is decided via the following confirmations:

Weaknesses of Dow Theory — and How to Overcome Them

Dow Theory requires at least two years of data to anticipate price direction. In cryptocurrency markets, finding reliable data with more than two years of history is often difficult. Moreover, even if we find such data, its reliability is questionable, as cryptocurrency markets involve a lot of volatility.

Another point worth considering is that the reliability of the current market trend is hard to define. According to Dow Theory, an uptrend is still valid even if a price is nearing a swing low. Similarly, a downtrend is considered to be active if the price is at a swing high. Thus, Dow Theory can be followed in the long run if one only considers higher bottoms and lower tops. What is within the primary or secondary trend is not clearly explained.

Investors generally consider support and resistance levels to be important, with bulls usually opening buy trades from the support and bears opening sell trades from the resistance. On the other hand, when the support or resistance level breaks, it flips the position: support becomes resistance, and vice versa. In Dow Theory, when a near-term swing level breaks, the S/R levels flip their positions, but this is only considered part of support-resistance trading.

As a result, investors should add other elements to their charts to increase trading probability. Dow Theory is still valid and effective in the cryptocurrency market when you add tools like 

 for more effective trading. If multiple indicators show the same direction, the price is more likely to follow the side.

We hope that this guide helps you understand what is Dow Theory and how it’s relevant to the crypto market. The main caveat in using Dow Theory to swing trade or day trade in cryptocurrency markets is to include correlation with other indices. The cryptocurrency market is very new, following pure supply and demand via blockchain technology. Investors can transfer their funds without any middlemen. This concept is novel, and often makes it challenging to correlate multiple indices. However, investors can group price actions of similar assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum together to identify current market sentiment.

Even if cryptocurrency traders understand how to apply Dow Theory, a strong 

 is still required. The cryptocurrency market is volatile and still struggling to pass regulators’ requirements. Therefore, investors would do well to remain skeptical, even while injecting money into this sector with proper money management rules.

Dow Theory: Win the Crypto Market with the Oldest Technical Analysis Theory

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards