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

GameFi

Ookeenga is a 3D NFT game that gives players the opportunity to explore an after-purge world. Find out more about how the game works in this article.

 has taken the world by storm ever since it was first introduced back in 2012. The refreshing idea of combining thrilling gameplay with the world of finance was once so foreign, yet now we see an abundance of games such as 

This idea has excited gamers and investors alike as they strive to find the best balance between the two concepts. If you’re one of them, you’ll be delighted to know that 

is the latest GameFi project to hit the shores. Unlike other projects, 

stands out from the rest, boasting breathtaking graphics, appealing world-building and addictive gameplay. 

Excited to find out about the next big thing in the GameFi scene? Read on, as we include everything you need to know about 

Set in The Sacred Forest, Glaik, after a catastrophe that wipes out Earth, Ookeenga features insects that have evolved and built a massive civilization with five races — Antuk (Ant), Krakee (Cricket), Mantah (Mantis), Montak (Moth) and Muu (Beetle). The Sacred Forest, however, is divided into two factions — the Akhah (Pureblood) and the Ahika (Mixedblood). Since species can interbreed — creating hybrids that may eventually lead to superior mutations and threaten the rights to the already scarce food and water resources — the Akhah faction believes that all hybrids and mutants should be exterminated. 

Players have to collect Hero NFTs to assemble their team for battles. Each Hero NFT provides the player’s skill set deck with different Troop Cards and Skill Cards. The main objective for players is to build a strategic team to effectively defeat their opponents. 

 apart from other games is that there are multiple ways to earn as you play. Here are some of the game assets you can expect when you play the game.

The game has a total of five hero races that you can obtain, each with different statistics regarding damage dealt, speed and health:

The heroes are organized into five different character classes:

Naturally, each character class takes on a different role and contributes in different ways to battle gameplay.

Other than purchasing and trading Hero NFTs on the 

Marketplace, you can also obtain new Hero NFTs by breeding two heroes that you already own. This process requires you to pay a tiered fee which depends on the number of times the Hero NFT has been bred. 

For example, it costs you 2,000 KAB tokens the first time you breed two heroes. By the fifth time, it will cost you 7,500 KAB tokens. The maximum number of times you can breed is nine, which will cost you 17,000 KAB tokens. Note that a hero used for breeding requires a time-out period before it can be used for breeding again.

After the breeding process is successful, you’ll receive a cocoon containing a baby hero inside. Once a certain amount of time has passed, the full-grown hero breaks the cocoon and emerges ready for battle.

While Hero NFTs come with their own default weapons, you can choose to upgrade these weapons by manufacturing, trading on the market or receiving prizes from PVP and game events.

These upgrades enhance the attributes of your heroes and increase the chances of your heroes’ troops defeating your opponents.

’s Land NFT game assets have received rave reviews. Each piece of land is an independent entity with a position on the 

map. Players can acquire Land NFTs via purchasing or leasing in the market. 

, players can earn passive income in the form of OKG and KAB tokens and in-game materials. You can choose to build, design and decorate a village on your piece of land with items purchased from the Marketplace. These decorations can be purely visual, but may also enhance the village’s maximum output. 

You can also earn passive income by conquering mines, forests and fields. A mine can be occupied once a player initiates an attack on it, which costs energy. A successful attack locks the mine. Otherwise, the mine is made available for other players to try their luck at attacking. After a certain period of time, the mine disappears and reappears in another location.

You can also earn income by fighting monsters. Of course, each attack costs energy, but if the attack is successful, you earn rewards. 

Lastly, you can also explore dungeons based on events. As you go deeper into the dungeons, the income increases. Those who manage to explore the deepest dungeon levels are rewarded with attractive prizes.

offers two types of treasures. The first type can be purchased on the market with KAB and OKG tokens. This treasure usually contains NFT item fragments, NFT items, OKG tokens, KAB tokens and other resources. 

The second type of treasure is given to players as a reward after battles.Unlike treasures which are purchased, rewarded treasures can only be opened after a certain period of time has passed. Of course, players are free to speed up this process by paying KAB tokens. In these treasures, players receive KAB tokens, resources and NFT item fragments. 

s in-game currency, KAB tokens are obtained through gameplay, and are used in most game features. Specifically, KAB tokens are used for breeding heroes, enhancing items and crafting equipment. They have no supply limit, and players can trade their KAB tokens for OKG tokens, allowing them to further upgrade their NFTs and other items. 

OKG tokens are the primary platform tokens of 

. You can earn OKG tokens both by playing the game and by purchasing them through Bybit.

As the game’s primary governance token, the OKG token can be used in the following areas:

, let’s take a look at OKG’s overall tokenomics. In total, there’s a maximum supply of 500 million OKG tokens, as follows: 

Excited to be a part of the OKG family and begin to earn as you battle opponents? Start investing today at 

, where 4 million OKG tokens can be earned through either committing 

As more gamers and investors show interest in P2E games, more companies are developing games to match the overwhelming demand. What sets 

apart from its counterparts are its breathtaking visuals and captivating storyline that will truly immerse players into the insect-themed world.

’s long-term plan is to become a core content IP with an ecosystem that includes both Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 games. This is highly beneficial to both investors and gamers, as profits gained from other projects within the 

Investors will also be delighted to know that the CROS Game Studio team who developed 

 comprises more than 30 members, all of whom have extensive experience and knowledge in developing and outsourcing game products on various platforms. For 

, a company with years of experience building and developing blockchain games. Furthermore, the project is backed by reputable institutions like 

 offers amazing visual designs, a thrilling game framework and a healthy economic model that will keep you hooked, but it will also be a great investment.

OKG tokens appear to be a great long-term addition to any crypto portfolio. The development team is dedicated to delivering a project unlike any other, with its insect-themed gameplay, stunning visuals and various ways to earn. A look at 

road map demonstrates that the team is continuously innovating new features to add to the game to improve player experience, including new story arcs by the end of 2023. 

is certainly the next big play-own-earn game to hit the shores, and that this is the perfect time for you to get in on the fun as they flesh out their game in their quest to achieve widespread popularity.

Ookeenga (OKG): A Real-Time 3D NFT Strategy Game

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards