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

web3

Salad Ventures is a pioneering entity in the X2E ecosystem, employing blockchain solutions and growth tactics to bolster the expansion of web3 initiatives. 

, a new player is making waves: Salad Ventures. This innovative organization, headquartered in Singapore, is a pioneer in the X-2-Earn (X2E) ecosystem, leveraging 

 and unique growth strategies to supercharge web3 projects.

In the following article, we’ll delve deeper into the workings of Salad Ventures and explore their unique approach to integrating play, learning and work in the web3 space. We’ll also discuss their various projects and the impact they’re making in the digital world. Stay tuned for an enlightening journey into the world of Salad Ventures.

Salad Ventures has already made significant strides in the web3 space. As of May 2023, over 2.5 million NFT rewards have been minted by Salad’s community members, and together with its network of ecosystem partners, Salad’s reach exceeds 6 million savvy web3 users globally.

The genesis of Salad Ventures traces back to early 2021. It started as a humble play-to-earn (

. This guild brought together over a thousand adept players, equipping them with the necessary tools to flourish and earn within the P2E sphere.

The leadership of Salad Ventures is a blend of seasoned entrepreneurs and crypto enthusiasts, with a diverse team of over 20 members hailing from various parts of the globe, including Singapore, Malaysia, America, Europe and the Philippines. Its core team members bring a wealth of operational experience to the table, having been associated with industry leaders, innovative startups and agencies that have collaborated with Fortune 500 companies.

Salad Ventures is more than just an organization building an X-2-Earn ecosystem. It’s laying the foundation for a revolution in the web3 world. The team is committed to creating incentive models via blockchain technology that reward play, learning and work, fostering a more equitable digital world. By spearheading these initiatives, Salad Ventures aims to redefine the future of these essential aspects of life.

Salad Ventures' mission is to enable new economic opportunities through integrated web3 ecosystems. They achieve this by building and backing preeminent projects that form the foundation of the new web3 economy. 

Salad Ventures operates on the principle of three main pillars: play-to-earn (P2E), learn-to-earn and work-to-earn, as embodied respectively in their primary products of Arcaden, Apollo Academy and Maslow, a decentralized labor exchange (DLX) set to launch in 2024. This approach is designed to create a cyclical effect benefiting both users and partners.

Salad Ventures focuses on the three key aspects of life of work, play and education. The organization has developed a sustainable model that allows users to earn while engaging in these activities.

For partner projects, Salad Ventures offers a comprehensive ecosystem. Projects can leverage Arcaden for user acquisition, Apollo Academy for user education and Maslow for job provision as they scale. This integrated approach allows projects to benefit from the interconnectedness of the Salad ecosystem.

 is a collection of G3M NFTs with varying rarity levels that can be earned by completing different tasks, such as social media engagement, app testing and event participation. The complexity, frequency and duration of the task dictates the rewards, with more demanding tasks providing greater rewards. Collectors can mint Purple G3M NFTs and upgrade them to higher tiers through a process known as forging. They can also compete in leaderboards for extra rewards. The G3M NFT Series is based on the BNB Chain, and uses the BEP-721 token standard. G3M NFTs can be traded or bought on marketplaces like 

The G3M NFT Campaign is open to everyone, but the forging feature is exclusively available to those who have completed Know Your Customer (

 (explained further below). This is to prevent the minting system from being exploited.

To encourage collectors, a leaderboard system will be implemented, with rewards distributed monthly. The leaderboard and reward system add an extra dimension of engagement and competition, motivating collectors to enhance their G3M collection's rarity and value through forging and other methods. Only wallets with the Salad Passport minted are eligible to participate in the leaderboards.

The leaderboard's prize pool will be influenced by various factors, such as the number of active participants, new users (number of Salad Passports minted), G3M NFTs trading volume, and campaign partnerships and sponsorships. This will be determined on a monthly basis.

 is an online casual games arcade that supports a play-to-win approach. It allows users to deposit Salad Ventures’ G3M NFTs in exchange for credits, which can be used to play games and win prizes that include rare NFTs. The platform is designed to be accessible to a broad user base, offering a chance to earn rewards without significant investments or specialized skills. Arcaden also plans to further incorporate its NFTs into the platform, creating a gamified experience with additional utility for NFTs.

, formerly known as Salad Academy, is an educational platform that initially focused on GameFi topics. It has since expanded its curriculum to cover all aspects of web3, including DeFi, TradeFi, 

, who are founding and higher management members of notable web3 projects. The academy is intended to be free for all, ensuring wide accessibility.

 is a decentralized labor exchange that plans to use NFTs as credentials to verify the capability, reliability and honesty of both employees and employers on the platform. It combines the best features of traditional platforms like Upwork and Fiverr with the benefits of blockchain technology. Transactions and payments are facilitated via smart contract technology, allowing workers and clients to transact securely and efficiently without intermediaries. 

The platform focuses on the gig economy, the freelancer market and the full-time/part-time job market. Maslow aims to create a more transparent, fair and cost-effective solution for both workers and clients by leveraging web3 technology.

In December 2022, Salad Ventures launched the Salad Passport, which is a 

 created in partnership with Galxe. This initiative was designed to offer various earning opportunities to Salad community members, known as the #SaladFam.

The minting of the Salad Passport requires KYC verification to prevent exploitation of earning opportunities. This process ensures that the user is genuine, and is interested in exploring the earning opportunities provided.

The Salad Passport, which was minted by over 20,000 users within the first three months of launch, serves as the primary key to access the evolving Salad X2E ecosystem. As Salad Ventures progresses toward its vision for the future of work, it’s committed to building its own infrastructure for the future web3 work economy and collaborating with partners to provide income-earning opportunities via blockchain.

 is a token of gratitude from Salad Ventures to its community for their unwavering support as they aim to become the ultimate ecosystem for all things X-2-Earn in the web3 realm. The Genesis Pass was exclusively reserved for existing community members to mint, and its launch was strategically carried out through live events with active community members.

These passes are strictly limited to only 200 copies, and there won’t be any other passes with the same level of benefits and utility available in the future.

Pass holders receive priority access to all virtual and in-person events hosted and co-hosted by Salad Ventures. These include, but are not limited to:

 has been marked by significant milestones. It raised a seed round of $2 million, led by Multicoin Capital, followed by a 

 in February 2022. This round included an impressive lineup of investors such as C2 Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, Winklevoss Capital and Polygon Studios. Notable angel investors like Santiago Roel Santos, Jack Herrick and Anthony Pompliano also joined the cap table.

Salad Ventures embarked on its journey in the second half of 2022, marking the first phase of its road map. The company introduced the Salad Passport (the official soulbound token for Salad Ventures), which was minted by over 28,000 users by March 2023. Concurrently, Salad launched the G3M NFTs campaign, resulting in over 1 million NFTs minted by the same date. 

During this period, Salad also conceptualized and built Arcaden and Maslow, and developed GuildOS:Core. The company also rebranded Salad Academy to Apollo Academy, expanding its educational offerings.

In the first half of 2023, marking the second phase, Salad continued to refine and develop Maslow and formed partnerships with over 100 A2 Alpha Partners through Apollo Academy. The company also launched the public beta version of 

, and introduced new NFTs and mechanics to the World of Arcaden. 

The second half of 2023, marking the third phase, will see Salad Ventures generate the SALD token and distribute it to the growing community and backers. The company will also improve Arcaden by integrating it with MetaMask and allowing SALD tokens to be staked to earn Arcaden credits. The project will also introduce Dynamic NFT features for the Base Character Profile Picture NFT in the World of Arcaden.

The first half of 2024, marking the fourth phase, will see the launch of the Arcaden Marketplace, powered by the SALD token. This phase will also see the beta launch of Maslow.

SALD is the native token of Salad Ventures. The token is designed to unlock Salad's products and innovations and serve as a 

, allowing holders to participate in shaping Salad Ventures' future. This could involve voting on new games for the Arcaden platform, educational content for Apollo Academy, changes to the Maslow platform, potential partnerships and community initiatives.

 is designed to reward and incentivize various stakeholders in the Salad ecosystem. There’s a maximum supply of 1.68 billion SALD tokens, allocated according to the following distribution:

SALD launched on Jul 19, 2023 at the price of $0.093132. It quickly rose to a peak of $0.099404 before crashing to its initial all-time low of $0.084822. It then recovered and hit an initial all-time high hours later on the same day at $0.107883. SALD price hit a new all-time high on Jul 21, 2023 at $0.132211 and reached a new all-time low on Jul 24, 2023 at $0.071592. It is currently priced at $0.089813 as of Jul 25, 2023.

Wondering where you can land your hands on some SALD tokens? Look no further, as Bybit now offers the SALD/USDT Spot trading pair! In order to get started, you’ll need to first sign up for a Bybit account and fund it with cryptocurrency before navigating to the 

To celebrate this listing, Bybit is holding 

 for users to win from a total prize pool of 75,000 USDT and 4,200,000 SALD.

The first event is exclusively for new users, and is being held from now through Aug 1, 2023, 8AM UTC. The first 1,250 new users to complete the following steps will each receive 50 USDT:

The second event is for all existing users who have created an account before Jul 18, 2023, 8AM UTC. You’ll be able to earn 10 USDT just by depositing a minimum of 8,400 SALD, or depositing 100 USDT and buying SALD with your Bybit account from now through Aug 1, 2023, 8AM UTC. Please note that the rewards will be distributed on a first come, first served basis to the first 2,500 users.

The third event is for all users: Stake to earn up to 333% APY, and win a share from the 4,200,000 SALD prize pool from now through Aug 2, 2023, 11:59PM UTC.

All you need to do is to first stake up to a maximum of 150,000 SALD with Flexible Savings, and start earning interest from the next day. The yield earned from the previous day will automatically be deposited to your Funding account — and will continue to be deposited daily until the last day of the event, as long as your tokens are still staked. If you’d like to withdraw your earnings, you can simply unstake your assets any time. 

Given its role within the Salad ecosystem, SALD, the native token of Salad Ventures, presents an intriguing investment opportunity. The token's utility as a governance token allows holders to participate in shaping the future of Salad Ventures, which includes voting on new games, educational content and platform changes. This active involvement in decision-making processes can potentially increase the token's value as the platform grows and evolves.

Moreover, the Salad ecosystem is built on three main pillars: play-, learn- and work-to-earn. This diversified approach could potentially attract a wide range of users, thereby increasing the demand for SALD tokens. The platform's focus on providing earning opportunities for its users, coupled with its commitment to education and work, could make it a compelling choice for those interested in the X2E space.

However, as with any investment, it's important to exercise caution. The cryptocurrency market is known for its volatility, and the value of SALD, as with any other cryptocurrency, can fluctuate significantly. While SALD presents potential investment opportunities, it's crucial to conduct 

 and consider your own risk tolerance before making an investment decision. 

As always, it's recommended to only invest what you can afford to lose.

Overall, Salad Ventures represents an intriguing blend of blockchain technology, gaming, education and work, offering a unique proposition in the rapidly evolving web3 landscape. As the platform continues to grow and innovate, it will be fascinating to see how it shapes the future of the X2E space.

Salad Ventures (SALD): Promoting Web3 Growth With X-2-Earn

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards