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

Altcoins

Gifto allows its users to store, create and gift various types of blockchain assets to their friends and family. It also includes a staking mechanism and yield farming feature for its users to earn its native token, GFT.

Crypto assets are increasingly popular virtual gifts valued for their versatility. Crypto may be used by the recipient for an investment, gameplay or even real-life purchases. It is also seen as an attractive option to hold crypto as recipients are not responsible for paying taxes on them since they are considered gifts. However, giving cryptocurrency gifts can be a complex and confusing process that involves many frustrating steps. Thankfully, with Gifto, users no longer need to worry about complicated processes when sending digital assets as presents.

 was specifically designed with the gift-giving purpose in mind. Created in 2017, Gifto allows its users to store, create and gift various types of blockchain assets to their friends and family members. 

These assets include custom-created NFTs, such as artwork, e-cards and more. Its easy-to-use interface allows anyone to quickly create personalized gifting experiences for their loved ones, friends and business partners. 

 mechanism that allows users to earn GFT tokens by contributing their tokens to the Gifto Staking Platform. 

 and the Gifto Store are some of the other features available on the platform. You can also trade, buy or sell crypto assets through Gifto. Gifto is intended to be a web3 ecosystem that is both self-sustaining and self-regulating, and it has the unique advantage of being functional across multiple chains. 

GFT is Gifto's native token. Gifto is in the process of 

 on the BNB Chain. The move to BNB Chain would streamline its dual-token structure of 

, thereby leading to lower fees and greater gifting efficiency. Users who currently hold GTO tokens can do a one-to-one 

 of GTO to GFT. The token's max supply and circulating supply will remain the same at one billion tokens. To avoid the possibility of double circulation, the old GTO tokens will then be burned. 

If you hold your GTO in a centralized exchange (

) such as Bybit, the swap will be executed automatically. If you store your ERC-20 GTO tokens in your own wallet, you will need to complete your swap via the 

 on the Gifto platform. If you have BEP 2 GTO tokens instead, you will need to fill out a Google Form for the Gifto team to help you perform the swap. Keep in mind that the GTO tokens will no longer be supported after Mar 12, 2023. 

The swap from GTO to GFT comes with an additional annual inflation rate of 2% over the next four years, with 1.5% of the annual inflation being allocated to GFT staking rewards. The remaining 0.5% will be distributed to charitable causes via Binance Charity in the spirit of gifting.

The token migration also allows for the expansion of the Gifto ecosystem, starting with the creation of the GIFTO wallet, which will be the first 

 on the BNB Chain. The Gifto team has planned many developments for this wallet, such as the ability to support 

 for more yield farming opportunities, gifting through the red packet system, GFT staking, special event gifts and more. While many changes are in store for Gifto in the near future, users can continue to take advantage of the simplified creation, storage and gifting processes that the platform currently offers to its users.

Gifto is priced at $0.084 with a current market cap of $84.35 million and a 24-hour trading volume of $68.61 million (as of Feb 22, 2023). While many factors impact the price movement of cryptocurrencies, many analysts believe that the price of Gifto will rise. In fact, 

 projects the GFT price to reach $0.31 by the close of 2025 and hit $0.90 by 2030. However, 

 believes that the Gifto price will remain largely stable in the short term, pricing at $0.088 in 2025 and only growing to $0.51 by 2030. 

With many analysts projecting an increase in the Gifto token value over the next several years and a solid market cap, it may be financially advantageous to invest in GFT and stake the tokens to earn more GFT. When you consider if this will be a good investment, it is important to also consider how viable the project will be in the future. Virtual gifts are increasingly popular, and this trend is expected to continue and eventually become commonplace as the world becomes increasingly digitalized.

Further, Gifto’s recent transition to the BNB chain is enabling it to make thoughtful updates that its users can benefit from. Its new web3 wallet is being developed to enhance gifting, staking, yield farming and other functions. With these developments, the GIFTO wallet will simplify and speed up the process of gifting virtual assets. Once the developments are complete, activity on the platform may increase in the years ahead, and the price of the Gifto token may rise substantially compared to its current price.

Do note that the above observations are not financial advice and you should always do your own research before deciding to invest in volatile 

Gifto tokens can be purchased on popular decentralized exchanges (

 and top CEXs like Bybit. On Bybit, you can trade GFT as a derivative. 

 involve a contract where you will be betting on the asset's future price and not on the actual asset.  

At Bybit, we have simplified derivatives trading by pairing altcoins with USDT. All the 

 on Bybit are quoted and settled in USDT. 

Gifto is changing the way people gift assets with its decentralized virtual gifting protocol. Its upcoming developments will make it easier than ever before to securely send crypto gifts to friends and family around the world at a low fee. Thanks to Gifto’s innovative approach, gifting cryptocurrency will become much simpler in the near future. Whether you're sending or receiving a gift from someone near or far away — Gifto can help make your special occasion even more memorable!

Gifto (GFT): Gifting Your Loved Ones Crypto

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards