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

web3

Altcoins

Explainers

Steem (STEEM) is a blockchain platform designed specifically for decentralized social media apps. Its most popular app is Steemit, a microblogging social network that rewards users for by posting and liking content.

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Blockchain-based social media is one of the most promising yet underutilized niches within the crypto industry. Faced with competition from Web 2.0 social giants like Facebook, X, Reddit and Instagram, SocialFi (Social Finance) and other 

 have maintained a low profile during the decade-plus social media revolution. Recent developments in the niche, however, have led to growing interest in the decentralized social media concept. Among the old-time leaders of this promising category is Steem, a blockchain platform built purposely for decentralized social applications.

 is a blockchain designed to host and power the growth of decentralized social media apps. 

Developers can build and launch Steem-based decentralized applications (

) that help users monetize their social content. Steem accounts can earn crypto rewards by producing content and even by upvoting (i.e., “liking”) it.

Steem offers near-instant transaction processing and features zero gas fees. The fee-free nature of the platform is designed to encourage greater involvement of social media users, both on the consumer and content developer sides. Steem was launched in 2016 and is the oldest among the leading decentralized social platforms.

The Steem blockchain is based on a variation of the proof of stake (

) transaction validation model, delegated proof of stake (

, whereby users who stake funds on the platform delegate block validation responsibility to a select number of 

. Staking rewards generated by the validation process are allocated to the Steem rewards pool, a key feature used in the blockchain’s functional mechanism.

The platform’s rewards pool is central to the idea of rewarding social media users for their activity. Only 10% of the staking rewards in the pool are given to block validators, called Witnesses on Steem. In contrast, on most other blockchains, validators receive all or at least a significant proportion of the rewards.

Nearly two-thirds of the staking rewards (65%) go to social media users who engage in on-platform activity. Half of this amount (32.5%) is allotted to Authors, users who produce and publish content on Steem-based DApps. The other 32.5% is set aside for Curators, who upvote content produced by Authors.

Another 15% of the reward pool’s funds go to the holders of the SP token, which we’ll cover in a later section. In essence, this token gives additional upvoting power to its holders.

Finally, the remaining 10% is reserved for the Steem Proposals System, which is used via the Steem DAO to facilitate governance voting for various platform improvements and changes.

Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) are custom tokens that developers and content producers will be able to issue on Steem to power their specific apps or communities. Steem’s primary native coin is STEEM; we’ll cover more on this cryptocurrency later on. While STEEM can be used to enable most transactions on the network, SMTs can act as application-specific or community-specific assets. This is similar to the manner in which Ether (ETH) and DApp-specific

 tokens coexist on the Ethereum blockchain. 

While ETH, akin to STEEM, powers overall network activity, individual ERC-20 tokens, much like SMT tokens, serve as the main currencies within respective DApps.

SMTs are still at the stage of conceptual proposal and have yet to be implemented on Steem.

Blockchain developers with a focus in the social media domain are major beneficiaries of Steem’s functional model. The platform gives them the ability to develop DApps with built-in revenue-sharing models. Since Authors and Curators earn crypto rewards from their activity, a share of the revenue generated goes to the DApp developer, based on a preprogrammed distribution model.

Steem also makes DApp development easy thanks to the supported popular programming languages, as Steem DApps can be programmed using JavaScript and Python, two of the most widely used languages in the world of software development.

For ordinary social media users who don’t boast extensive armies of followers, Steem is a true gem: in addition to producing your own content, you can earn crypto rewards simply by upvoting. On the vast majority of other social media platforms, monetization opportunities are primarily limited to influencers who boast thousands or even millions of followers.

Entrepreneurs can also leverage Steem to grow their social communities and monetize content. Steem’s monetization scheme, which offers rewards for followers and not merely for influencers or content producers, fosters more active user base participation within Steem communities. A more engaged user base spells better opportunities to grow your brand via social media community management.

Monetizing your content is a breeze on Steem. While many brands often have to run paid ads on other social media networks to promote their content, Steem pays you crypto rewards for quality content.

Steemit is Steem blockchain’s primary social media DApp. It’s a blogging-style platform that publishers can use to monetize their content as it gets upvoted and rises in the rankings. Being the first and most popular app on the platform, Steemit is often confused with the Steem blockchain itself.

At some point, Steemit grew to be the SocialFi world’s most popular app. However, over the past few years, its popularity has declined somewhat. The arrival of new decentralized social platforms, including the recent surge of platforms like 

, New Bitcoin City and Stars Arena, has turned SocialFi into a much more competitive space.

Despite coming off its past popularity highs, Steemit remains one of the most prominent blockchain-based social media DApps, enjoying exceptionally high usage rates in South Korea.

eSteem (formerly Steem Mobile) is another long-timer on the Steem network. Launched in 2016, eSteem is a mobile app that lets users post content in the form of blogs and messages, and monetize it via Steem’s typical upvoting mechanism. While Steemit’s focus is on the desktop environment, eSteem is adapted toward mobile-friendly content and interaction.

DTube is Steem’s primary video content platform. Users can post video content and upvote other users’ content to earn crypto rewards. DTube’s overall functionality and user interface are near replicas of YouTube, the video giant of the Web 2.0 social media world. However, since DTube is blockchain-based, it has significant underlying differences from its much larger rival.

For starters, censorship on DTube is dependent upon its users' votes, while YouTube has been accused of some heavy-handed ideological censorship. Moreover, DTube has no ads, since no corporate entity owns the platform. In contrast, YouTube’s owner, Google Inc., is ubiquitously known for its voracious ad dollars appetite.

Utopian.io is a Steem DApp that lets software developers earn crypto rewards by contributing to an open-source project. Developers can contribute to open-source projects listed on Utopian.io by improving code, fixing bugs, creating useful libraries and more. What Steemit is to bloggers and DTube is to video publishers, Utopian.io is to software development enthusiasts.

Steem Monsters is a trading card game with elements of an RPG (role-playing game). As of early November 2023, the game is in development. Many of the in-game assets in Steem Monsters are based on 

. So far, this is the only Steem DApp, either launched or in development, that uses the NFT concept.

The Steem blockchain is powered by three cryptocurrencies: STEEM, Steem Power (SP) and Steem Dollar (SBD).

As already noted, STEEM is the platform’s main cryptocurrency and can be traded on exchanges. Users earn STEEM via content publishing and upvoting.

Besides acting as the platform’s main content monetization coin, STEEM is also used for 

. In order to participate in the block validation process, users need to stake their funds in STEEM, and staking rewards are also generated in STEEM. However, the actual rewards paid out from the Steem rewards pool for participating in content creation and curation involve two other crypto tokens, Steem Power (SP) and Steem Dollar (SBD).

STEEM is currently the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by 

Steem Power (SP) is a crypto token that can be used to increase your voting power on the Steem platform. It cannot be traded directly on exchanges. However, you can swap SP for STEEM, and vice versa.

The votes of SP token holders carry greater weight than the votes of other users on the blockchain. The more SP tokens you hold, the higher your upvoting weight. For instance, when an SP token holder upvotes a post on Steemit, the content piece has a higher chance of climbing in the overall rankings, which translates to higher visibility on the platform. The post’s author also receives more STEEM rewards because of the valuable vote from an SP holder.

Steem Power holders also receive 15% of the annual STEEM block rewards, another incentive engineered to encourage users to purchase these tokens.

 pegged to the U.S. dollar at a 1:1 ratio. While the market value of the STEEM coin fluctuates, SBD’s supply mechanism ensures that the USD peg is tightly maintained. This is achieved via a combination of STEEM and SBD printing and burning when the peg starts to deviate from the 1:1 ratio. As such, SBD is a classic example of an algorithmically maintained stablecoin. SBD is designed for Steem users who prefer a high degree of stability for the crypto assets they maintain on the platform.

The STEEM reward system for creators and curators may seem a tad confusing, so we’ll break it down here. Although STEEM is used as a common unit to calculate rewards on the platform, the actual crypto rewards are disbursed to users in a combination of SP and SBD. Users can choose to receive their rewards in one of two ways, either 50% in SP/50% in SBD or 100% in SP. It should be noted that STEEM operates an internal swap market where all three cryptos — STEEM, SP and SBD — can be traded with each other. Thus, after receiving your SP and SBD rewards, you can transfer them into the asset of your choice.

As of Nov 10, 2023, STEEM is trading at $0.31, a 96.23% decline from its all-time high of $8.19 on Jan 3, 2018 and a 329.98% increase from its all-time low of $0.072 on Mar 11, 2017.

Long-term price forecasts for STEEM are largely bullish.DigitalCoinPrice 

 to trade at $1.12 by 2025 and $3.23 by 2030, whilePricePrediction 

 to reach $0.55 by 2025 and $3.80 by 2030.

STEEM’s outlook is mostly positive, though some factors may pose challenges to the coin's growth trajectory. Factors that are likely to work in favor of the token include the following:

1. Steem has a unique social blockchain model, whereby ordinary social media users (and not only influencers or brands with the financial muscle to run ads) can monetize activities. This should encourage a broader base of social media users to utilize the platform.

2. Steem’s proposed Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) can potentially add great flexibility and value for users and influencers in the Steem ecosystem. It’s great to earn rewards in STEEM tokens, but earning rewards in your own branded token is so much sweeter! The added flexibility and opportunities for brand development are poised to further boost interest in the platform.

At the same time, it should be noted that Steem operates in the exhaustively opportunistic social media industry. Competition from resourceful Web 2/0 giants such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and Reddit will always be a challenge that Steem has to confront.

The STEEM cryptocurrency can be purchased on Bybit via a 

 contract. If you don’t yet have an account with Bybit, you can seamlessly 

. A Bybit account lets you access crypto products and services, as well as Spot and Derivatives markets for hundreds of cryptocurrencies.

Steem’s blockchain-based network has unique features that let you earn crypto rewards through content publishing and upvoting. Such features are largely absent on other social media platforms. This reality has helped Steem survive the numerous crypto winters and market downturns since the platform was launched back in 2016.

The STEEM coin has been thoroughly time-tested and remains the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the SocialFi niche. The proposed Smart Media Tokens have the potential to further solidify the platform’s standing within the niche. When social media users start looking for alternatives to the large Web 2.0 networks, Steem is — and very likely will remain — one of the first platforms they’ll consider. Without exaggeration, Steem is web3’s X, YouTube and Reddit, all in one.

Steem (STEEM): A New Era of Social Engagement

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards