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

y00ts is a Solana-based NFT project that allows users to make and sell PFPs. It features 15,000 NFTs in the collection. Find out more about it in this article.

If you're an NFT enthusiast, you've probably picked up on the excitement around y00ts. Want to learn more? You're in the right place. Read on to discover what it is, the team behind it, how to make money with it, how to buy it and much more.

y00ts is a new non-fungible token project that allows users to make and sell PFPs. As a bonus, it's on the 

 blockchain — one of the fastest in existence.

, which is also the team behind the famous 

 NFT collection that recently hit an all-time high price in SOL. 

The y00ts NFT collection is centered on a sheep avatar, with layers of metadata to give y00ts their unique characteristics. There are a total of 15,000 NFTs in this collection, each one available to mint for 375 DUST tokens.

 are pieces of NFT art designed for use as profile pictures. Designs generally feature images of characters or avatars, making them popular among fun-loving internet surfers and individuals who'd rather not use their own photos.

Their status as NFTs differentiates them from other profile picture artworks, which creates serious appeal for collectors within the NFT space. The exclusivity of using an NFT image is exciting enough to entice even celebrities to display them.

Numerous PFP NFT projects within the overall NFT market have come and gone, but this one seems like it's here to stay.

Initially, this Solana NFT project wasn't meant to be y00ts at all. The DeGods developers planned a project called

, which would have been an expansion collection within the DeGods ecosystem. However, the creators realized Duppies didn't go far enough. According to the 

, y00ts aims to be "a common-sense version of copyright & ownership for NFTs."

The founders' vision involves y00ts functioning like a regular copyright, but with a few differences. Typically, one entity handles intellectual property rights. In the case of y00ts, the NFT collection will function as a governing body to do that job in a decentralized manner.

With y00ts, intellectual property (IP) rights aren’t specific to one holder; instead, they’ll exist in a registry listing, where everyone can see who’s approved to use each NFT's IP. Nobody can be sure whether this founding vision will catch on, but y00ts will be a fascinating test of this new licensing implementation method.

The y00ts Solana NFT project is the brainchild of 

Solana project DeGods is a digital art collection, but it's also a community full of developers, creators, artists and other innovators. Dust Labs, meanwhile, is a software company that specializes in benefiting holders by raising the value of NFTs. Considering the success of both DeGods and Dust Labs, it's hard to think of a better founding duo.

The popularity of these NFTs is undeniable, even though the project hasn't yet launched. That's obvious when you visit the website and see that applications for scholarships to mint y00ts NFTs are no longer being accepted.

That popularity is based partly on the success of earlier projects from the founders. Frank and Kevin's transparency on Twitter doesn't hurt, either. And that's not all: y00ts stands out for its sole focus on PFPs and its attempt to change the copyright game. Often, PFP projects are afterthoughts in broader projects. But that's not the case here.

The y00ts store is a marketplace where PFP holders will be able to customize avatar traits. Artists who create them can earn royalties from the sale of the traits they’ve created. Of course, artists can also choose to make the trait free of charge.

It’s important to note that eligibility to use the store won't be automatic. Instead, you’ll need to stake a y00ts NFT for 30 days before you can earn the ⓨ token which will allow you to shop.

Each PFP will be highly customizable. When someone wants to create a custom y00ts trait, they can submit it for approval. There are a few restrictions, though:

Creators whose traits are approved will own the ⓨ (y00ts copyright) of the IP.

There are two notable ways to earn money with ⓨ. Being an artist is the obvious one. Fortunately, non-artists can make bank, too.

y00ts artists' wallets won't be complaining about the numerous ways to make money.

After a trait receives approval, the creator owns the license. That means they can set their prices, decide whether to accept SOL or DUST (the DeGods community token), and earn 5% royalties on every sale. They can even sell the license in its entirety if they want to. It is important to note that the 

 mentioned that the DUST token has no economic value. Instead, the price of the token is determined by the free market. As of now, the price of one DUST token is approximately $1.51.

Artists can also pick the quantity available, giving them control over the supply and, hopefully, creating more demand for rare traits.

The fun doesn't stop there. Creators can also design fashion brands for the collection, and apply them to numerous traits.

Last but not least, artists will have the opportunity to complete paid commissions for y00ts holders.

 the financial fun. Fortunately, enterprising individuals can earn significant cash without creating a single trait.

Users will be able to make traits for six months. After that, the y00ts store will stop accepting them. Once that happens, holders can divide their y00ts into parts. They can then sell the individual items, which will be in limited supply. y00ts holders can also trade for other traits.

Additionally, non-artists can create y00ts clubs — sub-communities based on commissions of custom sets of traits. They only need to pick an artist from the y00ts store. Holders can then register their clubs with ⓨ and add their own logos.

The y00ts developers envision clubs revolving around things like memes and common interests, though y00ts holders will undoubtedly come up with surprises.

All traits within a registered club fall under one y00ts copyright, so a club creator can monetize the entire sub-community. They'll receive royalties from every y00ts sale of a trait from their club. Alternatively, club owners can sell the rights to traits for DUST or SOL.

This is the general breakdown of y00ts' rarity structure, give or take a couple of percentage points:

The launch date for y00ts was supposed to be September 2, 2022, which has come and gone. The delay occurred because, for reasons that are still unclear, Twitter briefly

 of several members of the y00ts team on August 31. Twitter is the primary method through which the y00ts team communicates, and the account suspensions made it challenging to complete all necessary pre-launch tasks.

The new launch date was purported to be Sunday, September 4, at

.” However, the mint was once again pushed back after the team ran into a blocker bug, as 

. If a fortune teller were here, they could tell you the market cap and the most expensive sale; alas, they are not. To get that information as soon as possible after launch, you can check

So far, 200 SOL is the highest sale price these NFTs have reached. There are, however, secondary market listings offering them for prices as impressive as 

. At the collection's highest floor price, its market cap reached almost 2.8 million SOL.

After starting at 124 SOL upon launch, the floor price quickly reached 186 SOL (about $6,138 at the time) within 24 hours, with only a brief dip to 129 a little after 6 a.m. on September 6. The floor is now 136 SOL ($4,243).

 taught us anything, it's that Frank — the founder of both y00ts and DeGods — knows how to lift floor prices. You can see how much DeGods’ floor rose in just the past three months right

With a cofounder like Kevin, who specializes in raising NFT value, it's fair to say that y00ts' floor price could continue to rise. Displays of eager anticipation from those who wish to buy y00ts tokens further emphasize how well things might go.

The first people to get their metaphorical hands on y00ts were

. Minting cost them 375 DUST (currently around $725, though the value was higher at launch), the DeGods system's native token. There were originally 15,000 NFTs available, though many have now been minted.

Despite the fact that scholarship winners got the first chance to mint y00ts, that's not the only way to get them. DeGods holders also had a shot at getting them early. Fortunately, the rest of us have options, too.

Individuals had to apply for a scholarship to get on the “y00tlist” — similar to a presale list — and mint an NFT. If you're reading this article, it's too late for you to get a y00ts scholarship, since the collection has already launched. However, it would have been too late even if you'd attempted it a couple of days before launch. The applications closed on September 2, two days earlier than expected. That was likely an unpleasant surprise to anyone who had heard earlier statements that applications would close September 4.

The scholarship was an interesting choice on the developers' part. Let's talk about how it works.

The team members behind this Solana NFT project say they chose applicants based on merit. In this context, merit means people they believe will actively participate in the community while adding value. Developers expect that a curated community will help y00ts flourish.

Some have worried that "merit" might mean "has a big Twitter following," but that's not the case. People with small follower counts received fair consideration as well.

The scholarship process involved checking to ensure applicants had enough SOL or DUST to mint their project. It also required applicants to verify their social media accounts and answer several relevant questions. Each person had to state which category they fall under: Artist, meme creator, etc.

Anyone who didn't make it to the y00tlist must turn to the open NFT market.

If you can't manage to get a y00ts NFT in the primary market, you can always head to a secondary market.

, Solana’s top NFT market, is a particularly good option. Its biggest draw? Low transaction fees. Magic Eden also has the best attributes filter around.

A new NFT market seems to pop up every second, but sticking with a well-established, trustworthy choice like Magic Eden is wise.

 is another popular platform where you can find these NFTs. Rarible now has a large selection, too.

As stated previously, unless you're a fortune teller, you can't be sure that y00ts NFTs are an excellent long-term investment. But anyone who's paying attention can make an informed guess that they will be. Here's why:

Another reason for high hopes is one that’s too big to include in a bullet list. Dust Labs, the software company behind y00ts, recently 

. The funding round saw investments from Chapter One, Foundation Capital, FTX Ventures, Jump Capital, Metaplex and Solana Ventures. A belief in y00ts' future success played no small part in confidence among these investors.

y00ts has the potential to become a game changer in the NFT PFP world, wildly surpassing other PFP projects. Its novel approach to managing intellectual property rights, singular focus on PFPs and insistence on creating a great community from Day 1 make it stand out in a saturated field.

y00ts NFTs: Creating More Than Just NFT PFPs

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards