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

tomiNet is a self-governing alternative internet network to World Wide Web in a bid to provide privacy and bring true decentralization to internet users.

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While the World Wide Web (WWW) was created to provide a censorship-free platform for people to express themselves without restrictions, interference by governments and large corporations has had the opposite effect.

Other than government restrictions, other challenges facing the internet today include a lack of data privacy, as personal data is being manipulated and leaked to third parties. By and large, freedom of expression, privacy and information on Web 2.0 has been severely compromised. Furthermore, 

, which was designed to bring about true decentralization through 

, is also affected by a lack of sovereignty as some of its components still rely on a centralized foundation.

 has created an alternative network that combines the strengths of Web 2.0 and web3 with a parallel web designed to deliver true decentralization to the internet.

 is a parallel self-governing internet network that provides an alternative to the current World Wide Web design in a bid to provide privacy and bring true decentralization to internet users.

Its platform strives to create an ecosystem comprising a decentralized browser and domain name system (DNS), advanced computing technology and a multi-chain wallet with the vision of creating a new internet era that will bring about true freedom of speech.

At the core of tomi’s vision of achieving decentralization is its use of the 

 without a central authority. Via the tomiDAO, Pioneer NFT holders first submit proposals, following which TOMI token holders vote on whether a site violates set guidelines, and whether or not it should be banned. Voting on tomiDAO is completely anonymous, free from any coercion or incentivization.

Furthermore, its fresh approach to a censorship-free internet combines Web 2.0 technologies, such as TCP/IP and DNS with web3 technology through the 

 to ensure a resilient, fast and low-cost browsing experience for users.

, the founders of tomiNet have chosen to remain anonymous, but the tomi team consists of about 96 members spread across ten locations worldwide. The team strongly believes that by remaining anonymous, tomi can be fully independent and function seamlessly through its DAO, ultimately achieving their dream of a censorship-free internet.

As a full-fledged internet protocol, tomiNet is made up of the following key components.

The tomi Browser allows you to browse the web similarly to WWW, but with complete anonymity. By using a fork of 

, you can open incognito windows, conduct private searches and use VPNs to ensure safe and highly private browsing.

, and custom filter searches to enable a secure connection to tomi domains. It allows you access to any website, and can be used simultaneously with your regular browser. You can also create your own browser and integrate tDNS (see below) to support tomiNet for maximum user security.

tomiNet’s decentralized Domain Name System (tDNS) allows users to purchase domain names through an auction. It’s fully controlled by tomiDAO to ensure decentralization and fairness in the distribution of the domain addresses.

tDNS not only represents a domain IP address, but it also unlocks multiple public addresses for use across several blockchains. Every tDNS address on tomiNet is minted as a 

 (NFT) on Ethereum, making URL ownership unique and encrypted to prevent tampering.

 and payment system designed by tomiNet. It lets you conveniently buy, sell and interact with various tokens and 

, and store NFTs. You can also use it to purchase tomi domains and interact with tomiNet.

As a multi-chain wallet, tomiPay currently supports tokens and NFTs on Bitcoin, Ethereum, 

. To promote privacy, tomiPay users don’t have to go through 

. If they wish to complete KYC, however, they can choose their KYC providers so that they have a say in who has access to their data.

artDAO is a sub-DAO for TOMI token holders that governs the artwork of the TOMI token and Pioneer NFT designs. Anyone can submit their artwork to be featured in the daily token issuance. Winning artwork is decided by voting by members of the artDAO. The designer whose artwork is sold that day as a Pioneer NFT receives 720 TOMI tokens, freshly minted by a 

, with their artwork printed on the tokens.

Besides voters, the artDAO also has a screening committee chosen by the main Pioneer DAO that ensures submitted work conforms to the community’s guidelines. The artDAO committee receives 180 TOMI tokens, while voters receive 180 TOMI tokens for each Pioneer NFT sale.

tomiNet tokenomics consists of TOMI tokens and Pioneer NFTs, which play various roles in the long-term sustainability and longevity of the platform’s ecosystem. 

 for tomiNet. Some of its use cases include:

TOMI tokens have no fixed total supply, though tomiDAO can choose to modify the issuance policies after the first five years. TOMI entered circulation through two ways, an initial minting event and continuous daily minting, both of which are pegged on the issuance of Pioneer NFTs. Every year, additional TOMI tokens equivalent to $10 million will be minted and deposited in the network's Development fund.

Based on the initial and daily minting, the team estimates that total supply in the first five years of the project will be 597 million TOMI tokens, distributed as follows:

tomi Pioneers are those who have embraced the tomi vision from the start. In recognition, an initial 1,500 Pioneer NFTs were issued in January 2023, with the initial purchasers receiving 18,000 TOMI governance tokens for each Pioneer NFT bought. Pioneer NFT holders control the tomiDAO with the power to decide how tomiNet operates.

Pioneer NFTs are also being sold daily through an auction at a rate of three, seven and ten in the first, second and third years of the project. From the fourth year, only one Pioneer NFT will be issued daily.

As of Sep 19, 2023, TOMI’s price was $3.89, over a 2,400% increase from its ATL of $0.16 in mid-January 2023 and an approximately 40% drop from its ATH of $6.59 on Jun 6, 2023.

Price forecasting experts are pretty bullish on tomiNet. According to PricePrediction's 

, the token could hit $9.14 and increase to $54.79 in 2030. DigitalCoinPrice shares 

, with a TOMI price forecast of $14.00 in 2025 that could potentially increase to $40.92 in 2030.

With the ever-increasing censorship and invasion of data privacy by governments and large corporations, tomiNet has a viable solution for internet users. Its alternative internet network brings decentralization back to the internet, giving users freedom of speech and control over what can be browsed.

Having also learned from its predecessors' mistakes, tomiNet has implemented censorship for detrimental and extremist content. Pioneers and TOMI token holders hold the power to regulate websites, preventing the formation of a dark web and harmful websites.

 will bring down the cost of using artDAO as voting fees will be substantially reduced. This collaboration will help drive adoption and bring the platform closer to achieving its vision of promoting free speech and a decentralized web.

Based on these factors, we believe that tomi is a potentially good investment. However, due to the crypto market’s volatility we highly recommend you 

You can buy tomiNet (TOMI) on the Bybit exchange as a spot USDT trading pair (

 funds using the various options available on the platform. Once your account is funded, you can proceed to the spot trading terminal and buy your TOMI tokens.

tomiNet strongly believes in a self-sovereign and censorship-free internet. Through its decentralized browser and DNS, the platform has created an alternative to the highly invasive World Wide Web, which is always under the radar of governments around the world.

By leveraging the resilience of Web 2.0 architecture and the advanced privacy security features of various web3 technologies, tomiNet is a viable solution that could effect freedom of speech to a secure internet.

tomiNet (TOMI): Creating a Truly Free World Wide Web

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards