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

Blockchain

Moonbeam is a smart contract DPoS parachain on the Polkadot network that has an Ethereum-compatible environment.

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The Moonbeam network —  Polkadot’s first fully functioning parachain — offers the perfect blend of 

 features. You can use it to develop DApps with Ethereum’s tools, and then deploy them on Moonbeam to scale them on multiple blockchains. 

Since Moonbeam is Polkadot’s first fully functioning parachain, it’s caught many crypto enthusiasts’ interest. If it’s caught your attention, too, then keep reading as we explore this unique platform’s features, and discuss whether it’s a good investment for the long term. 

Moonbeam is a smart contract parachain on the Polkadot network that works on the 

 (DPoS) consensus mechanism and has an Ethereum-compatible environment. 

Being a parachain means that Moonbeam is a Layer 1 chain linked to the Layer 0 Relay Chain of Polkadot. 

Having an Ethereum-compatible environment means that Moonbeam crypto projects can work with Ethereum’s web3 API and 

 (EVM). So if you want to move some of the workloads from Ethereum to Moonbeam, then you can do so with minimal changes. 

Moonbeam is a Substrate-based platform, meaning that it’s based on the interoperable 

 blockchain. As a flexible, customizable framework, Substrate allows for forkless upgrades, allowing developers to create blockchains best suited to their needs. The ability to fully customize Moonbeam allows for features like on-chain governance, EVM implementation and staking. 

There’s a sister parachain of Moonbeam called 

. It’s a canary network for Moonbeam that’s built on Kusama, which essentially makes Moonriver the testing ground for smart contracts and codes before they become live on Moonbeam, the main parachain. 

Like Moonbeam, Moonriver is also Ethereum-compatible, so you can easily deploy your existing smart contracts to Moonriver to test them out. Its native token is MOVR.

Don’t Know Much About Parachains? Here’s a Quick Intro

Parachains are heterogeneous blockchains that run parallel to the Polkadot 

. They enjoy Polkadot’s scalability, security, cross-chain integrations, and connection with other parachains. 

The Moonbeam platform is for users who exist on different chains that want to link their assets from multiple chains, or for developers to 

 that work across a multi-chain network. 

It’s the ideal platform for you if you want to scale and increase the reach of your smart contracts or projects currently on the Ethereum network, at a lower cost. 

You can also use it to build new ecosystem projects by utilizing Moonbeam’s 

 functionality, or to add additional features to your Polkadot projects which aren’t available on the main Polkadot relay chain. 

Because of Moonbeam’s Substrate framework, it allows you to make DApps that process complex transactions while also utilizing the Ethereum development toolchain. 

The Glimmer token (GLMR) is the native utility token of the Moonbeam platform. The GLMR token is essential for the Moonbeam project to function as it has multiple uses.

Firstly, you need GLMR to pay for the network’s 

as well as smart contract execution fees. GLMR is also used for facilitating network security by incentivizing collators who play a critical role in maintaining full nodes which ensures a decentralized node infrastructure and a vibrant ecosystem. 

Finally, GLMR facilitates on-chain governance where token holders can participate and contribute their voice in network issues such as proposal referenda and electing council members.

The price of GLMR is approximately $0.5884 as of September 12, 2022. It has a market cap of around $255 million and its circulating supply is over 384 million GLMR at the time of writing. 

The Moonbeam foundation launched GLMR with a supply of 1 billion, and set its annual inflation rate at 5% with an uncapped total supply. 

When you spend GLMR tokens to pay transaction fees for the execution of your smart contracts, 80% of it is burned and 20% is given to the on-chain treasury, which then distributes it further. This deflationary mechanism increases the value of the native token over time. 

Before we show you how to stake GLMR, it’s important to understand 

The Moonbeam network is maintained by selected collators who have a stake in the network. The collators accumulate the transactions on the Moonbeam network, and use them to generate new blocks. They also create the receipts or the state transition proofs for the validators on the Relay Chain (Polkadot’s central chain).

There is currently a maximum of 64 collators in the active pool, with 20% of the annual inflation distributed to the active collators as a reward. 

As a DPoS mechanism, Moonbeam also incentivizes delegators, who are Moonbeam token holders, to stake GLMR tokens to vouch for a collator. A minimum bond amount of 50 GLMR is required. Only the top 300 delegators (based on the number of GLMR staked) of every collator receive staking rewards. There is no slashing penalty for either collators or delegators if collators engage in misbehavior.

. Note that you have to add Moonbeam as a custom network, as GLMR is not an 

Step 2 of the process, where you choose a collator to whom you’ll delegate your tokens, takes a bit of strategy. That’s because while choosing a collator with a lower bond will enable a delegator to earn more rewards, it also adds to the collator’s risk of falling out of the active pool, which means no rewards for the delegator. 

Another way to ensure you maximize your earnings is by checking the collator’s past performance via the 

 column. In general, if a collator has produced 0 blocks in the last round, they’re considered a poor performer.

GLMR Price Prediction: Should You Invest in Moonbeam Crypto?

As the first parachain on the Polkadot blockchain, the Moonbeam network has proven that multi-chain connections and cross-chain interactions can work. This is a remarkable achievement and an important step toward the mass adoption of decentralized networks. 

Because it has a substrate framework, Moonbeam offers additional features on top of what the Ethereum network already provides. 

Given features such as EVM implementation, scalable nature, deflationary tokens and an ecosystem of DApps, it’s obvious that Moonbeam’s platform has a lot of potential. 

These are some of the reasons why several experts predict the price of GLMR will rise in the future. Price Prediction forecasts Moonbeam's price at around 

, as the demand for the coin increases because of its utility. DigitalCoinPrice also expects a rise in Moonbeam's price, though at a relatively more modest rate, up to around 

There are two ways to buy GLMR on Bybit: USDT Perpetual and Spot. Here’s how to buy Spot:

Go to the official exchange website of Bybit and 

page. Choose from the options available: 

 Once you’ve purchased your USDT, go to the 

 on the right side of the screen to initiate trade. [

: Limit, Market, Conditional and Take Profit/Stop Loss (TP/SL) Orders.]

As a Polkadot parachain with full Ethereum compatibility, the Moonbeam network has all the ingredients necessary for a successful interoperable multi-chain platform. Since it’s only been two years since its launch, time will tell if the network can attract more users and increase the value of its token.

Moonbeam: Beaming a New Path to Multi-Chain

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards