Dec 9, 2024: 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.

 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 — U.S. Payroll Rebounds While Unemployment Increases 

In November, U.S. hiring showed a notable increase, with nonfarm payrolls rising by 227,000, following a revised gain of 36,000 in October, which was affected by storms and strikes. Despite the growth in payrolls, the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, indicating a cooling labor market rather than a significant decline. Average payroll growth over the past three months was 173,000, a decrease from earlier in the year, suggesting a moderation in hiring.

The uptick in the unemployment rate can be attributed to an increase in long-term joblessness, which is the highest it’s been in nearly three years. This has led traders to speculate that the Federal Reserve may consider another interest rate cut at its upcoming meeting from Dec 17–18, 2024. The data, adjusted for disruptions like the Boeing strike and hurricanes, supports the Fed's assessment that although the labor market remains solid, it’s less of a driver for inflation.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has indicated that recent rate cuts aim to bolster the labor market, although some policymakers suggest a pause on further cuts may be needed, as the economy is showing resilience. The report highlights a mixed job landscape, as hiring has been strong in healthcare, hospitality and government, while retail has seen significant job losses.

The labor force participation rate fell to 62.5%, the lowest since May, and the number of people unemployed for over 27 weeks increased, reflecting longer job search times. Overall, while layoffs remain low, some major companies have announced head count reductions. Wage growth has stabilized, suggesting that demand for new hires is moderating.

Weekly Crypto Highlight — Retail Is Coming Back With Altcoins Surging, as Bitcoin Breaks $100K With Whales’ Accumulation

Token Sentiment Across Social Media. Sources: Bybit, Santiment

The cryptocurrency market is witnessing remarkable growth, particularly in major assets such as XRP, Cardano (ADA) and Stellar (XLM). XRP has surged by an impressive 444%, while ADA and XLM have seen increases of 280% and 512%, respectively. This surge is largely attributed to aggressive accumulation by whale investors and cautiously optimistic sentiment within the crypto community.

 activity plays a crucial role in shaping current market dynamics. Since mid-October 2024, whale wallets have accumulated a total of 91,856 BTC, significantly contributing to Bitcoin’s price increase. In contrast, there’s been a decline in 

 holdings among these wallets, indicating a strategic shift toward investing in more volatile cryptocurrencies rather than maintaining stable asset positions.

In addition to whale accumulation, the cryptocurrency landscape is evolving with several trends emerging. Interest in 

 is waning as investors pivot toward more sustainable projects with long-term potential. This shift reflects a growing desire for robust investments instead of speculative plays.

The integration of AI into blockchain ecosystems is another transformative trend. 

 are enhancing transaction processing efficiencies and supporting the development of virtual economies, creating new opportunities for innovation.

Moreover, hyperliquid token generation events (TGEs) are gaining traction. These innovative mechanisms improve liquidity and enhance the trading experience, addressing challenges that have historically plagued new tokens.

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Bitcoin Reaches $100K, Altcoins Surge, U.S. Payroll Increases

Bybit WSOT 2024 broke records with $100B in trading volume, over 77,000 traders and innovative events such as the DEX Wave. This recap dives into highlights, top performers and key stats.

The Bybit World Series of Trading (WSOT) is a premier global trading competition that continues to set new benchmarks in the crypto industry. WSOT 2024 saw record-breaking participation, with over 77,000 traders from 161 countries generating $100 billion in trading volume. 

This year’s event introduced features like the WSOT DEX Wave, tiered competition leagues and ROI reset options, making the competition more accessible and fair.

This article provides a detailed overview of WSOT 2024, including its highlights, innovative features and exceptional performances by individuals and squads. It also examines Bybit’s efforts to integrate traditional finance (TradFi) and 

 (DeFi) to push the boundaries of crypto trading.

 has become one of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency trading competitions. Designed to celebrate trading excellence and foster a sense of community, WSOT attracts participants from across the globe who compete for prestige and significant rewards.

The 2024 edition of WSOT raised the stakes with a prize pool of up to 10,000,000 USDT, distributed across three competitive leagues tailored to traders’ capital size:

WSOT 2024 emphasized inclusivity with its structured tiers, enabling traders of all levels to participate. Coupled with advanced features such as ROI resets and strategic use of 

 (UTA), this year’s competition underscored Bybit’s commitment to innovation and fostering global engagement in crypto trading.

The Bybit WSOT has grown into the world’s largest crypto trading competition, showcasing exceptional trading talent and innovation since its 2020 inception. Each following year, WSOT has raised the bar with increasing participation, prize pools and charitable contributions.

Key highlights from past WSOT events include:

With each successive edition, WSOT has further cemented its place as a premier trading competition, combining inclusivity, high stakes and global community engagement.

WSOT 2024: Key Highlights and Records Broken

WSOT 2024 set new standards for crypto trading competitions, attracting worldwide participation and breaking multiple records. This year’s event highlighted the scale, inclusivity and competitive spirit of the global trading community.

WSOT 2024 redefined crypto trading competitions, merging innovation with inclusivity. The event’s record-breaking achievements, robust community engagement and impressive prize pools underscore Bybit’s commitment to elevating the trading experience.

With features like DEX integration and tiered competitions, WSOT continues to push boundaries, setting a benchmark for global crypto events.

WSOT DEX Wave: Expanding Into Decentralized Trading

Introduced at WSOT 2024, WSOT DEX Wave brought DeFi and web3 trading into the spotlight. This new segment allows participants to explore and engage with a variety of web3 projects, competing for the 1,000,000 MNT prize pool while navigating the growing 

Participants evaluated over 100 web3 projects, casting votes and contributing 120,000 voting points. The competition featured a fair weighting system, ensuring all projects received a balanced opportunity for recognition.

By engaging with real-use cases, traders not only demonstrated their skills but also gained deeper insights into emerging decentralized technologies.

DEX Wave introduced a new dynamic to WSOT, encouraging traders to bridge the gap between traditional trading and the decentralized market. By focusing on web3 projects, the event underlined the expanding role of decentralized platforms in the evolving crypto landscape.

With record-breaking participation and $100 billion in trading volume, Bybit WSOT 2024 set a new benchmark for crypto trading competitions. The event showcased Bybit’s commitment to innovation, fair competition and a seamless trading experience, solidifying its position as a leader in advancing the global cryptocurrency trading ecosystem.

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Bybit WSOT 2024 Recap: Record-Breaking Year

Phantom Wallet, with 7M monthly users, has integrated the Sui blockchain, marking its first support for a Move-based network and a significant step for Sui’s ecosystem. 

Daily Top Performer — Morpho Protocol (MORPHO)

The S&P 500 fell 0.19% as investors awaited the November jobs report, which may influence the Fed's anticipated rate cut. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 8.2%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 0.17% and 0.40%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is MORPHO, which surged 54.0% following the launch of DeFi Saver's Automated Leverage Management for Morpho on Base.

Morpho Protocol (MORPHO), founded in 2021, is a decentralized Ethereum-based lending protocol that enhances crypto lending through a P2P order matching system. It allows customizable lending markets and features Morpho Vaults for various risk levels. Initially launched in 2022 with Morpho Optimizers for Aave and Compound, it later introduced Morpho Blue in 2024 for flexible lending markets. Morpho Labs continues to focus on developing Morpho while still supporting the original Morpho Optimizers. 

, enabling Automated Leverage Management. This includes Auto-Repays for unwinding and Auto-Boosts for leveraging up based on set threshold ratios. Users can configure their positions easily. The feature is available for several Morpho markets, such as cbETH/USDC, wstETH/USDC, and more, with additional markets to be added in the future.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

Phantom Wallet, with 7M monthly users, has 

 the Sui blockchain, marking its first support for a Move-based network and a significant step for Sui’s ecosystem. This expands Phantom's multichain support beyond Solana, Bitcoin, and Ethereum, offering Sui users features like staking, swaps, and NFT storage across mobile and browser platforms.

Yesterday, BTC Spot ETF flows recorded a $148.8M outflow from GBTC, partially offset by a $145.0M inflow to non-GBTC funds, resulting in a net outflow of $3.8M.

" hints at a potential $FUEL airdrop happening earlier than expected, despite the Fuel points program running until January 2025. Speculation surrounds whether this refers to the airdrop or another development.

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Phantom Wallet Expands Multichain Support with Sui Integration

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.

BTC has finally surpassed the $100K mark, leading to increased bullish positioning in derivatives markets. This reflects strong sentiment and a desire for upside exposure in perpetual swaps and futures. Short-term implied volatility has risen as traders seek options to capitalize on the rally.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

BTC's successful breach of the $100K barrier has led to a noticeable return of perpetual swap markets to all-time high open interest levels, although the response has been somewhat muted. Earlier in the week, perpetual swap markets shifted their focus to ETH after BTC's repeated failures to break through $100K. While funding rates for both derivatives remained high and positive, open interest in ETH contracts increased at the expense of BTC positions prior to the breakthrough. Additionally, ETH trade volumes have constituted a larger-than-usual market share.

BTC Calls See No Significant Influx Post-$100K

The sudden rise in spot prices has triggered a sharp increase in demand for short-tenor options, as traders seek exposure to the upward movement. BTC's term structure inversion has driven short-tenor implied volatility levels above realized volatility. Although implied volatility for BTC is lower than that of ETH, open interest data shows that the influx of call option open interest in BTC markets wasn’t as significant as for ETH. Nevertheless, BTC's volatility skew remains strongly bullish.

ETH's options market showed the most bullish positioning ahead of the overnight spot move, while the perpetual swap markets for both major cryptocurrencies reflected strong positive sentiment. Open interest is heavily weighted toward OTM calls, signaling a robust preference for upside exposure as realized volatility starts to catch up to implied volatility. This demand for upside exposure is evident for both tokens, particularly with ETH's remarkable increase in call option open interest over the past 24 hours.

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Dec 5, 2024): After BTC Turns $100K, Investors Are Still More Bullish on ETH

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DeFi

Altcoins

Explainers

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Grass is a platform that provides internet bandwidth. It aims to democratize and decentralize internet resources through fair compensation. Learn more here.

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The convergence of artificial intelligence and 

 has sparked a wave of innovative solutions in the crypto space. Among these emerging projects, 

 stands out by transforming idle internet bandwidth into a valuable resource for AI development while compensating users with rewards.

In this article, we'll dive into how Grass works, from its advanced data processing infrastructure to its user-friendly node operation system. We'll explore its tokenomics and key features, analyze its market potential and examine the project's road map as it bridges the gap between everyday internet users and AI development.

Grass is a platform that aims to democratize and decentralize internet resources through fair compensation. Its network converts unused internet bandwidth into valuable AI training data, rewarding contributors with GRASS tokens while building an open-source, accessible knowledge base.

Grass was co-founded by Andrej Radonjic, who serves as its CEO. With a background in software engineering, and experience from his previous venture, 1on1proxy, Radonjic leads the development at Wynd Labs alongside CTO Chris Nguyen. The project emerged from the growing need for accessible, high-quality data to train AI models. With the 

 and AI development costs continuing to rise, Grass was conceived to democratize data collection while creating value for everyday internet users.

Since its launch, Grass has experienced remarkable growth, expanding to 190 countries and collecting over 1 TB of data daily through its network of more than 2 million users. Such rapid adoption demonstrates strong market demand for decentralized AI data collection solutions that benefit all participants, not just large corporations.

Grass's mission to create a more accessible and equitable AI ecosystem centers on the following key objectives:

Through these objectives, Grass is building an ecosystem where AI developers gain access to quality training data, everyday internet users earn rewards for their contributions and the broader AI industry benefits from more accessible and ethical data collection practices.

Grass operates as a decentralized network that allows users, known as node operators, to contribute their unused internet bandwidth for web scraping and AI data processing. The operation relies on several key components:

This entire process operates seamlessly utilizing a sovereign rollup mechanism for efficient data processing, collection and verification, while maintaining high security and scalability standards.

Grass offers several features designed to enhance the user experience and reward participation in its network.

The Grass dashboard provides users a comprehensive view of their activity, including bandwidth contributions, earned Grass Points, referral statistics and 

 eligibility. The intuitive interface allows node operators to easily connect and disconnect their bandwidth contribution while maintaining complete visibility of their network participation.

Grass incentivizes network growth with a multi-tiered referral program. Users can earn commissions based on their referrals’ activity, structured as follows:

Grass’s platform implements a comprehensive rewards system centered on network participation. Users earn Grass Points by contributing their unused internet bandwidth and operating nodes, with earnings based on uptime and data processing.

These points can be converted into GRASS tokens during the token generation event. Future opportunities for token 

 and governance participation in the ecosystem are rumored.

Grass has made significant strides since its inception, with a clear road map outlining future milestones, as follows:

The GRASS token will play a central role in the Grass ecosystem, serving various purposes that drive network participation and growth:

While the GRASS token hasn’t officially launched, current trading data from Bybit Pre-Market Perpetuals provides insight into its market valuation. GRASS has demonstrated price movement between $0.88 and $1.20, with a current price of $1.09 as of the time of this publication (October 2024).

The community itself draws comparisons to 

 (WLD), which has a current fully diluted value (FDV) of $16 billion. With Grass's total supply of 1 billion tokens, matching WorldCoin's FDV would put GRASS at $16 per token. However, such comparisons should be viewed cautiously, as each project has unique characteristics and market conditions.

Looking to trade GRASS tokens? Bybit now offers the GRASS/USDT Spot trading pair and GRASSUSDT Perpetual contract. To get started, you’ll first need to create a Bybit account, then fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

When evaluating GRASS as a potential investment, several key factors deserve consideration:

While GRASS shows promising fundamentals and meets a significant market need, potential investors should 

 when evaluating GRASS as an investment opportunity.

Grass stands out as an innovative solution that democratizes AI development by transforming unused internet bandwidth into valuable training data. With over 2 million users during its beta, strong backing from prominent investors and a clear vision for making AI development more accessible, Grass demonstrates significant potential for reshaping the multibillion-dollar AI data market.

Grass (GRASS): Putting Idle Bandwidth to Work for AI Development

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards