Jan 6, 2025: Our weekly Institutional Insights explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

Weekly Highlight — Markets Snap Five-Day Loss Streak 

Investors are now seizing the opportunity to buy the dip in U.S. stocks after a five-day decline that erased over $1 trillion in market value. Wall Street has broken its longest losing streak since April, with the Nasdaq-100 rebounding 1.7% and the S&P 500 rising 1.3% on Friday, January 3. These gains slightly offset the week's sell-off, which had continued into the new year following a tough December.

Despite concerns about slowing earnings growth among tech giants like the Magnificent Seven, traders remain optimistic, especially regarding AI leader NVIDIA Corporation. The market believes that, as long as retail investors keep investing in AI, the associated stock market boom is expected to persist. 

Stocks reached their session highs in the afternoon after Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, indicating potential support for a business-friendly agenda. Meanwhile, bond yields rose, with the 10-year hitting 4.6% following comments from Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin about maintaining restrictive rates. U.S. manufacturing showed modest growth, with new orders at their highest since early last year, while investors assessed economic strength against the possibility of slower interest-rate cuts.

Weekly Crypto Highlight — AI Agent Spring Coming

Many investors are eagerly anticipating an Alt Season, a period when altcoins typically surge in value. However, current market dynamics suggest we may not see a widespread altcoin rally. The sheer number of tokens, combined with limited liquidity, has led to what's known as altcoin dispersion, making it crucial to select the right sectors and tokens.

, which are thriving even as the broader market declines. This nascent sector is experiencing rapid advancements, and its associated tokens face less pressure from venture capital unlocks. Many of its top protocols lack centralized exchange listings, indicating more buyers may enter the market.

Those investors who missed previous opportunities, such as the DeFi summer of 2020 and the Alt Layer 1 trade, now have another chance. Instead of targeting individual AI agents, the best risk/reward strategy lies in investing in infrastructure plays, which serve as the foundational tools for the sector.

The leading AI agent player is Virtuals Protocol, a platform for launching tokenized AI agents on the Base network. By purchasing tokens like Luna by Virtuals (LUNA) and VaderAI (VADER), users gain governance rights over specific agents, which allows them to both influence development and share in profits. 

Recently, daily protocol fee revenues dropped significantly in mid-December 2024 as activity slowed for the holidays. However, speculation around agent-associated tokens surged as the new year approached. Currently, Virtuals Protocol generates over $1 million in daily fees, though this is 50% less than figures for early December. Despite these challenges, the VIRTUAL token has more than doubled in value, reaching a market capitalization of $4.6 billion.

Other highlighted opportunities include Zerebro, which is pivoting to a full-stack framework for AI agents; ARC, with its Rust-based framework; and 

 (GRIFFAIN), a natural language on-chain search tool. These projects are well-positioned for future growth in the evolving landscape of AI technology.

 as we delve into leading AI agent tokens and the past week’s market movements. 

Advanced

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Market Snaps Five-Day Loss Streak; AI Agent Spring Coming

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.

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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 Learn

Altcoins

GNY is an app that uses machine learning to make crypto price predictions. A token of the same name is linked to its services and products. Read more here.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are grabbing the attention of the world with a free service called 

, which can provide instant answers to almost any factual type of question and even create schedules and outlines. In a similar vein, GNY is a platform that combines AI, machine learning and 

 to analyze data and make more accurate predictions. The first use of this service was for Bitcoin trading. Predicting Bitcoin volatility is important for successful trading. However, it can be challenging. GNY makes it easier to make profitable plays.

, a tech entrepreneur and investor who has 20 years of experience, founded GNY in 2015. His background includes business strategy, intellectual property and investing. Wong had a vision of developing a way to organize and analyze price data to make more accurate price predictions.

Because Wong wanted the tool to be accessible to as many people as possible, he chose to decentralize it. The GNY team developed a token and their own blockchain. Businesses can use GNY to analyze other types of data and develop new applications as side chains.

GNY's technology has even been used to help catch pedophiles. The 

 received a grant from GNY to continue enhancing the former’s technology, which helps law enforcement catch and track child predators. So far, the 

 has led to the arrest of over 14,500 child predators. More than 3,300 child victims have been saved.

The GNY team strives to address the problem of emotions getting in the way of crypto trading. Machine learning analyzes all past data to predict where a price will go next. Normally, traders do this research manually, with different strategies to figure out which strategy is most profitable. However, this takes a lot of time. Bitcoin traders may want to consider using the 

, either for predictions or to supplement their own. As of now, only Bitcoin trading is supported, but the team plans on making the technology available for other cryptocurrencies.

GNY makes it easier for businesses and developers to bring their ideas to fruition. The platform can assist with launching tokens, creating decentralized applications (

. It has low transaction costs and fast speeds, making it a practical blockchain to use.

 that teach themselves the solutions to problems. It can read the entire blockchain or the current block. 

, an AI method that was inspired by the workings of the human brain, is used to allow the technology to make predictions. This enables the AI to detect complex patterns in pictures, text and other data. Each block of the GNY network contains a “neuron” and the entire blockchain is the 

If you've heard of ChatGPT, you may be wondering if this is the same technology. There are similarities, but GNY is unique. The GNY team has even applied for a 

After a batch of data is processed, GNY calculates the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) to determine accuracy. MAPE is a formula used in statistics and deep learning for estimating how accurate a data set or algorithm is. Several

 in this platform use tiers to extract features from data and make predictions.

The GNY BTC Range Report predicts Bitcoin's volatility and price over the next seven days. However, it's important to note that the Report itself isn't financial advice. You’re still taking on risks, so you need to stay aware and cautious. Standard rules of investing and trading, such as never risking more than you’re willing and able to lose, continue to apply with a machine learning tool like GNY.

The GNY Range Report is a seven-day forecast of cryptocurrency based on all past data. In predicting future 

, the report estimates upcoming highs and lows. This helps users place both 

. The Bitcoin range report is refreshed daily at 11:00 UTC and draws upon data from over 70 datasets and millions of combined datapoints.

The GNY Range Report displays an opportunity zone of recommended entry and exit points, which is especially helpful for new Bitcoin traders. Other included features for more experienced traders are hourly and daily trading indicators, such as 

. The developers plan on adding new features and indicators over time.

The GNY Range Report is available at $20 a month, with the first two weeks free. According to its website, the $20 fee is a limited-time introductory pricing, so you might want to sign up early.

 tokens into GNY mainnet tokens. You need mainnet GNY tokens to access utilities. In the web3 space, “utilities” refers to the features an app, crypto or NFT provides. The mainnet is the final version of a blockchain that's available to the public. Most developers operate a testnet before launching a mainnet. GNY plans on updating its Swapgate to provide additional features.

 for taking certain actions, such as holding the tokens or adding them to their wallet. Future plans to expand the rewards program will provide holders with access to cryptocurrency predictions and insights.

 on desktop, Android and iOS devices. Delegates are able to vote through their wallet, too.

Not all of the features on the desktop wallet are available on the mobile wallet yet. The team is working on adding these features. Currently, you can transfer tokens, vote, create and launch assets on the mobile wallet.

At this point in time, only the desktop wallet lets you use the Swapgate and delegate registration functions.

In 2022, GNY delivered many features for its platform, including a mobile wallet, rewards program, Swapgate and the BTC Range Report. In 2022 the platform migrated to the mainnet as well. The team isn't slowing down anytime soon, and has big plans for 2023.

Bitcoin trading will soon no longer be the only cryptocurrency market supported by the GNY Range Report. The top 10 cryptocurrencies from CoinMarketCap and community voting will also feature range reports. This expansion will draw in new users from the cryptocurrency market, who may begin holding GNY tokens for their utilities. This will give existing holders additional earning opportunities if they're ready to trade other cryptos besides BTC.

The GNY team hasn't yet revealed which new DEX indicators are coming, but they’ve confirmed that more will be added in 2023.

Sales of GNY products provide liquidity for rewarding holders, with rewards in ETH or GNY tokens, depending on the type of action that they take. Special features of the range reports are token-gated to encourage more customers to hold GNY tokens. Examples of token-gated features are custom notifications, market threshold indicators and trading signals. GNY has locked up 200 million tokens to help ensure scarcity and maintain value.

As of Mar 21, 2023, the GNY price is $0.0737. 

 to hit $0.16 by the end of 2023 and $0.26 by the end of 2025, and to double by 2029 to $0.53 and cross the $1 mark by 2031. 

While GNY crashed to a low of $0.012 in the cryptocurrency bear market of 2022, it has shown slight growth in February 2023, when it surged in price up to $0.189.

 to DigitalCoinPrice, but is even more positive in the long term. It places the price of GNY at $0.14 in 2023 and $0.29 in 2025, anticipating that GNY will cross the $1 mark by 2029 to $1.27, and achieve a price of $2.79 by 2031.

GNY is suitable for investors who have a high-risk tolerance and a willingness to play a long-term game. If you feel passionate about what GNY is building, you may also find that it's a good investment. People tend to feel the happiest when they put their money into something that they actually like. However, do pay attention to the numbers and take them into consideration. Price predictions don't expect massive growth for this token, so you may not want to put a significant amount of your capital into it.

If you’re looking for an accurate way to predict future Bitcoin prices, GNY is an excellent tool to use. An additional benefit of this platform is that holding its token could pay off if it surges in value.

GNY Crypto: Using Machine Learning to Predict Crypto Prices

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards