Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards.

Daily top performer — Pyth Network (PYTH)

The S&P 500 dropped 1.5% to 5,282.70 this week, down 5.9% in April and 10% year-to-date, led by tech losses. Real estate and energy outperformed, while political pressure on Fed Chair Powell and inflation concerns weighed on sentiment. Gold dipped 0.6% to $3,319 after a record high, as Powell’s stagflation warning tempered its rally. Despite the pullback, the uptrend remains intact. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, are up by 0.77%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising 0.64% and 0.72%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is PYTH, up 10.1%, following the launch of Pyth Entropy for secure on-chain random number generation by Soneium.

Pyth Network (PYTH),  is a blockchain oracle system that delivers real-time crypto price data to blockchains, enabling smart contracts to react to market changes. Soneium 

 Pyth Entropy, a tool for securely generating random numbers on-chain. Two apps, HandsNFT AI and 2p2e, are already utilizing Pyth Entropy to create unpredictable and engaging experiences.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards. This approval follows recent changes to local laws, with China Asset Management (ChinaAMC) partnering with OSL Digital Securities to launch the ETF by May 15. The ETF will offer exposure to Ethereum staking, transforming it from a passive investment into an active participant in the Ethereum network. The staking process is powered by Kiln, with OSL providing custody and insurance services. The rewards will contribute to the ETF's net asset value, benefiting shareholders.

Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $25.9M in inflows, all from non-GBTC funds, while GBTC recorded no flow.

" and a points campaign called Drops, where users can earn points—potentially leading to an airdrop—by engaging with Linera content on X. To join, sign up on 

, complete tasks like joining Discord and interacting on X, then enter the campaign. Keep engaging to earn more points, but avoid spamming.

Beginner

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Hong Kong approves Ethereum ETF with staking rewards, boosting institutional participation

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.

US president Donald Trump’s tariff policies are influencing both crypto and US equities. Last week, BTC and the S&P 500 rallied due to a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs (excluding China). Equities are slightly below their April 9 highs, while BTC is holding above $83K. Its implied volatility term structure has normalized, and the volatility skew has improved from last week’s bias toward out-of-the-money puts, though it hasn't fully shifted toward calls.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Tariff pause briefly brings back trading volume

Since our last report, open interest surged on Apr 9, 2025, as crypto spot prices rose after President Trump’s temporary tariff pause, accompanied by a nearly $10B increase in trade volumes. However, trade volumes have since returned to mid-March levels, and open interest has declined from the April 9 highs. The initial price spike indicates the tariff pause surprised the markets, but the subsequent pullback reflects concerns over remaining tariffs.

After being inverted for much of April due to trade policy shocks and macro headwinds, BTC’s term structure has disinverted, with front-end volatility dropping significantly this week. Call and put volumes have been balanced, with calls slightly exceeding puts most days. Apr 9, 2025, reflected mixed market sentiment, as both call and put volumes rose, but puts were higher overall. Open interest remains greater in calls, and has increased slightly since last week, reaching its highest level for the month (more than double from the beginning of April).

Despite a rally on Apr 9, 2025 that brought ETH close to $1.7K, traders sought downside protection, leading to higher volumes in put contracts as compared to calls. Since then, ETHUSDT options volumes have declined, but open interest remains strongly weighted toward calls with later expirations, which have increased since last week. After being inverted for much of April, ETH’s term structure of volatility has flattened, with volatility compressing around the 70% mark across tenors.

Advanced

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Bybit X Block Scholes crypto derivatives analytics report (Apr 16, 2025): Bitcoin put bias has moderated, but not yet shifted to calls

KiloEx (KILO) is a user-friendly DEX for perpetuals trading, offering high leverage, rewards, LSTfi integration and a robust multi-chain ecosystem.

 trading is one of the most lucrative areas for cryptocurrency enthusiasts if you know how to navigate the sometimes complex world of these contracts. Unlike standard futures, perpetual futures contracts have no expiration date, allowing traders to hold onto their positions as long as they prefer. You only exit a crypto perpetual (or “perp”) contract when you feel it’s the best time to execute your long or short trade. The lack of an expiration period makes these contracts attractive for traders.

Unfortunately, many crypto perpetual contract trading platforms are far from user-friendly. It seems like many perpetual crypto exchanges assume that only professional traders dabble in these contracts, and along with that assumption goes a second one — that these pros can navigate even the most complex user interfaces. As a result, finding a user-friendly perps platform is a challenge in the world of crypto trading.

 (DEX) that aims to change the status quo by providing a user-friendly environment for traders. Its platform also offers high leverage ratios, integration into the wider liquid staking token finance (LSTfi) ecosystem and generous reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Thanks to its numerous benefits, this DEX caters to the needs of traders at all levels of expertise who are interested in crypto perpetuals. Operational since mid-2023, KiloEx launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025 to further enhance its platform's reward, staking and governance mechanisms.

 (BNB) that specializes in crypto perpetual futures trading.

 The platform prides itself on offering a user-friendly interface, high 

 ratios of up to 100x, multi-token vaults with generous APYs and a number of reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Co-founded by Joey Ni (CEO) and Charles Gong (COO), KiloEx was originally launched on BNB Chain's mainnet in June 2023. As of mid-April 2025, the platform has additionally expanded its service coverage to five 

 (B2). This coverage allows KiloEx to access the ecosystems of three leading blockchain platforms — 

Manta, Base and Taiko are Ethereum-focused Layer 2 solutions, while opBNB is an efficient and low-cost optimistic rollup for the BNB Chain, while B

 is a platform linked to Bitcoin that acts as a major Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi) enabler.

Because it’s a BNB-native platform, KiloEx's industry footprint is most notable within this blockchain's broader ecosystem. In fact, as Apr 17, 2025, KiloEx is the top DEX on the opBNB network by 

Using Layer 2 chains allows KiloEx to offer its users fast and low-cost transactions, which isn't always possible on a typical Layer 1 network. It's true that BNB Chain, the primary Layer 1 used by KiloEx, generally has much lower gas fees than Ethereum, the industry's leading 

 chain that’s notorious for its exorbitant costs. However, KiloEx's partner Layer 2 networks help drive costs and transaction times even lower. BNB Chain's current average gas fee is slightly over $0.10, while the opBNB Layer 2 rollup's comparable fee is only about $0.005.

In 2024, the platform introduced one of its most innovative features — the 

, which allows liquidity providers to stake multiple assets to earn high yields. That same year, KiloEx significantly expanded its partnership network, becoming an active player in the LSTFi ecosystem. LSTFi is a new stream within the DeFi industry that allows you to use 

 (LSTs) on various protocols for additional yield.

Having solidified its market presence in 2024, the project launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025. However, in mid-April 2025, KiloEx 

 and halted trading on April 15 as a risk management measure, pending investigation of the damage.

The Hybrid Vault is among the most innovative features offered by KiloEx. Essentially, it acts similarly to liquidity pools on other exchanges. Liquidity providers can contribute their crypto funds to the vault to support trading activity on the DEX and earn interest on their contributions, based on the fees earned by the protocol.

You can contribute a mix of coins to a KiloEx vault. Supported assets include 

Depending upon trading activity and the mix of coins contributed, you can earn APYs as high as 30%, making KiloEx one of the most lucrative choices for liquidity providers in this niche.

KiloEx uses a health factor calculation for this type of vault to keep your funds and the entire ecosystem safe. Based on the health factor score of your contribution to the vault, your funds could be liquidated if their value drops dangerously low.

Discounts are also offered for fixed-term deposits for established assets, such as USDT and USDC. Withdrawals for the fixed deposits are processed upon maturity, while all other withdrawals are processed within one to three "epochs," with each epoch on the platform lasting about three days. Thus, depending upon your contributed funds, you’ll wait anywhere from three to nine days to receive your crypto back.

The KiloEx platform also runs a generous referral program under which you can earn rewards for referring your friends to the platform. The amount you earn depends upon the trading volumes generated by the people whom you’ve referred. Additionally, your referees to the DEX can also benefit from fee rebates, again depending upon the volume of trade they generate.

There’s a tiered system, comprising nine levels, based on which you and your friends earn commissions and rebates. Under this system, even those referred traders whose monthly volume is at the lowest level (below $5,000) can still benefit from 5% rebates, while you also earn a 10% commission.

The table below shows the structure of this referral system with percentages for commission and rebates based on monthly trading volumes.

KiloEx offers an affiliate program for key opinion leaders (KOLs) with a certain level of social media following and influence in the crypto market. KOLs may apply to join the program by filling out an application, which is then considered by the project team within 48 hours.

To qualify for affiliate status, a KOL must have: 

Approved affiliates are provided a link to the platform, and are encouraged to invite their followers to trade on the KiloEx. If they invite at least five followers who trade at sufficient levels, the affiliates can start earning their commission. KOLs can earn up to 55% commission, depending upon the referred followers' trading activity.

KiloEx’s native utility token, KILO, is a 

 asset launched on BNB Chain. It’s used on the platform for governance, fee discounts on trades, rewards via 

, liquidity provision incentives and staking.

KILO is a supply-capped asset, with a maximum and total supply of 1 billion. The token’s supply allocation shares are shown in the chart below.

xKILO is an escrowed version of the KILO token. You can convert KILO to xKILO at a fixed rate of 1:1. The primary utility of xKILO is to provide boosted liquidity provision, which makes it possible to receive staking rewards. By locking xKILO on the platform, you can access special discounts and other benefits reserved for VIP-level users. Holding xKILO also grants you governance power to vote and influence the platform's future direction.

Unlike KILO, xKILO is nontransferable and isn’t tradable on the secondary market. The only ways to obtain xKILO are either to buy it with KILO or receive it via airdrops.

Platform users can earn points to qualify for KILO airdrops. Typically, you accumulate points by trading, depositing funds, referring others to the DEX, checking in to the platform and completing other specified eligible activities.

The project’s initial airdrop, Genesis Season, had an eligibility snapshot taken back in July 2024. Under the currently running airdrop campaign, Pioneer Season, users can earn points to receive KILO tokens for 180 days past the token generation event (TGE) in late March 2025 (i.e., until late September 2025).

Additionally, you can earn KILO tokens on Bybit simply by participating in the 

 event and holding BNB in your account. Every day at various random times, Bybit will take snapshots of your BNB holdings in your Funding and Unified Trading Accounts to calculate the number of KILO tokens you’re eligible for. The campaign will run through Apr 25, 2025, 11:59PM UTC, and you’ll have your share of KILO airdropped seven days after this date.

 market as a swap pair with USDT. If you don't have a Bybit account, you can easily 

, and access opportunities across hundreds of trading pairs and crypto products on the exchange's Spot and Derivatives markets.

As of Apr 17, 2025, the KILO token is trading at $0.039, which is 76.2% lower than its ATH of $0.1648 on Mar 27, 2025, and 17.3% higher than its ATL of $0.03344 on Apr 12, 2025.

Long-term price forecasts for KILO are mostly bullish. CoinCodex 

 at $0.0387 in 2027 and then rise to $0.135 in 2030 while PricePredictions 

When it comes to perpetuals trading, both traditional 

 (CEXs) and DEXs have often struggled to offer an intuitive trading experience. In contrast, KiloEx has made user-friendliness a cornerstone of its operations. With KiloEx, you can enjoy a streamlined trading process, access market trends info for thorough research, get an overview of the cryptocurrency market and conduct other activities via an interface that’s designed for anyone, irrespective of their familiarity with decentralized trading.

The platform also boasts a diverse range of other benefits not easily found in the world of perpetuals-based cryptocurrency trading — generous leveraged trading options, trading fee discounts, lightning-fast trades, low trading fees and an innovative Hybrid Vault system. Many of these benefits are thanks to KiloEx's collaboration with several Layer 2 decentralized platforms, which provide the technical infrastructure to enable low costs and fast order processing.

If you’re a crypto perpetuals enthusiast, KiloEx is definitely a platform to peruse.

Intermediate

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KiloEx (KILO): More than a DEX — a rewarding ecosystem

In this article, Bybit Learn breaks down how the RFC meme coin was launched by the 'ifindretard' community, what’s driving its popularity and how to trade the RFC meme coin on Bybit.  

RFC quickly became one of the most talked-about and actively traded meme coins in early April 2025. In this article, we’ll break down how the token started, what’s driving its popularity and show you how to trade RFC on Bybit.  

Meme coins have always relied on humor to capture a wide audience and RFC is no different. The coin is inspired by the 

 X account that posts right-leaning, political and social posts on the platform. The account quickly became popular and gained over 718,000 followers as of mid-April 2025. 

 the launch of RFC, a Solana-based meme coin with a core mission of becoming the definitive meme coin for their community. The project aims to counter the prevalence of rug pulls and scams and create a token that is fair and community-centric.

The RFC token was launched on Mar 24, 2025, on the 

 platform. Within a few hours of its launch, the token graduated from the bonding curve and was placed in the liquidity pool. The initial post from the @ifindretards account is likely the major cause of the parabolic rise in the price of the token on the pump.fun platform. 

In the following days, the popularity of RFC experienced a significant surge, largely fueled by an enthusiastic community that rallied around the project. The coin’s 

 on Solana and its allocation of 96% of the supply to the public attracted a lot of attention from the meme coin community. Such community-centric characteristics quickly boosted the coin’s profile. According to 

, over 216 KOLs have mentioned the coin, with 124 being bullish and only five being bearish. This positive momentum was soon reflected in the price surge of RFC.

Following the graduation from the bonding curve, the price momentum continued and the coin reached a peak market cap of around $8 million, but quickly retraced to $1.2 million the next day. Over the next few days, the coin consolidated in the $1 million to $5 million range. 

On Mar 31, 2025, the coin broke out of this range and witnessed a 2-week staggering rally that saw the market cap rise as high as $138 million on Apr 14, 2025. This is a 25x increase from the first day’s close of $5.5 million. The coin has since retraced slightly, and as of Apr 15, it’s currently trading at a valuation of around $91 million market cap. 

The total supply of RFC is fixed at 1 billion tokens. The distribution of these tokens is heavily weighted towards the public, with 96% allocated for a public fair launch. Notably, only 4% of the total supply was allocated to the developer wallet, and the project explicitly states that there were no airdrops or presales.

If you’re interested in riding the RFC wave, you can go long or short on the token with up to 20x leverage on Bybit through its 

 RFCUSDT perpetual contract. Whether you're bullish or bearish, you can dive into the action and start trading the 

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RFC: Trending meme coin with a strong community

Bybit 360

Options

Learn how this data can help us make more informed trades, we aim to equip traders with the tools they need to navigate the market effectively. 

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 trading has been an important part of the broader crypto economy and the most important price discovery venue for cryptocurrency, especially for blue chips like 

. Professional traders and institutions have been using futures and options as part of their portfolios to hedge their positions, improve the execution of their strategies and potentially increase the profitability of their portfolios. 

Most participants in the cryptocurrency derivatives markets are professional traders (or as some may call them, 

) who are often at the forefront of crypto trading.. Observing the derivatives markets by constantly examining the relevant data could provide valuable insights into how these professional traders see the market.

In this article, we’ll provide a practical overview of derivatives trading data and explain how an everyday trader can extract actionable information from this data. By discussing how this data can help us make more informed trades, we aim to equip traders with the tools they need to navigate the market effectively. 

Open interest (OI) is one of the most common metrics in crypto derivatives trading. It refers to the number of outstanding unsettled (opened) contracts — whether perpetual, futures or options — that market participants hold at any given time.

Figure 1: BTCUSDT Perpetual open interest on Bybit

OI is essential because it essentially tracks the number of active market participants and, to some extent, is able to reflect the level of willingness of these professional traders to make trades at a specific time. 

 OI on Bybit. There was a clear spike in OI on September 19, 2024, when the United States Federal Reserve delivered its 50 bps rate cut. This surge in OI could mean traders have been more willing to bet on BTC prices after confirmation of the cut.

It’s important for general traders to know how active the market is. If the market is active, it could give asset prices stronger momentum. In contrast, a less active market with a continuing lower OI could mean that traders are in a wait-and-see mode.

The long/short ratio is another derivatives trading indicator from which we can extract important information. It essentially gives you a glimpse of oversold sentiment among professional traders. As the name suggests, the long/short ratio expresses the net long and net short positions as percentages of all position holders within a specific period. 

Figure 2: Bybit’s BTCUSDT Perpetual daily long/short ratio.

Examining the changes in the long/short ratio could also give general traders more confidence to spot trends. For example, in early September 2024, BTC prices saw noticeable fluctuations, from around $64,000 in late August to near $52,000 in early September.

Figure 2 shows the daily long/short ratio of BTCUSDT on Bybit. During the sell-off, the long-short account ratio increased for three consecutive days and reached 2.9 on September 7, 2024, the highest level in a recent month.

Interestingly, as Figure 3 suggests, the price of BTC decreased during the highlighted period while the number of long accounts accumulated. This divergence could imply that derivatives traders have been gearing up for a potential trend reversal, thereby opening more long positions.

Let's look at the recent BTCUSDT perpetual long/short ratio. Figure 4 shows the ratio dropping from 1.71 on Sep 19, 2024 to 1.25 on September 20, one day after the Fed's rate cut. Despite the market seeming to react positively after the cut is delivered, the long/short ratio shows that short accounts have actually increased. 

This increase could be interpreted as traders taking a relatively conservative stance, choosing not to increase their long positions and to hedge with additional short positions as BTC’s price increases. It would be instructive to look at readings for the next few days to reach a clear conclusion. 

Figure 4: Bybit’s BTCUSDT Perpetual daily long/short ratio

It's worth noting that the long/short ratio can also be categorized by trader profile, such as the top 100 largest position holders. It can also be viewed under a different time frame, such as one hour or 30 minutes. Each of these parameters may provide different information. We highly recommend users reference multiple data points from different categories to get a more complete picture. 

. We also recommend the following reading:

Options have been one of the most favorite trading products for professionals, especially institutional traders. The flexibility and composability of options enable traders to use complex position setups and strategies. Looking into options trading data may give us a peek at how these professional participants have been setting up their trades.

Understanding OI by Expiration & Strike Price

 in options refers to the number of opened contracts within a specific time frame. Options contracts also have many more parameters than perpetual contracts, and open interest alone can be filtered by types of options, expiration dates, strike prices and much more. Let's take a look at the below examples.

Figure 5a: BTC call options OI by expiration.

Figure 5b: BTC put options OI by expiration.

Figures 5a and 5b (above) show the OI of BTC call and put options by expiration dates. In September 2024, most of the OI, both call and put, was on the contract with a Sep 27, 2024 expiration. Traders seem to have been betting on where BTC will go by the end of the month.

Now, let's look at the strike prices among the OI with the Sep 27, 2024 expiration date. Figure 6a suggests that most of the OI for BTC calls was at $60,000, while Figure 6b indicates that the $40,000 put has the most OI. 

This gives us a price range as a reference, which could mean that options traders who are betting on BTC prices to rise by the end of the month seem to believe that by the expiration date (September 27), BTC will have a chance to hit $60,000 or above. 

In addition, traders have been using relatively 

 (OTM) and less expensive put options to protect their long positions. This could explain why $40,000 has most of the OI.

Figure 6a: BTC call options OI by strike price.

Figure 6b: BTC put options OI by strike price

So, how can this information be interpreted? At the time of this writing, BTC was trading at around $62,000. A $60,000 call option is in-the-money; if someone has a stronger bias toward a positive price action in the short or medium term, they would certainly buy in BTC calls with high strike prices. If there's a noticeable shift of the OI toward high strike prices' call options, that could mean that the positive sentiment of the post-rate cut could still be somewhat sustaining. Otherwise, it could be interpreted as a conservative setup.

To sum up, based on the above-mentioned data, BTC derivatives traders seem to have remained somewhat bullish after the Fed’s rate cut. However, it seems that most participants were cautiously optimistic, without over-leveraging, and perhaps wanted to see more confirmation of a trend reversal before making additional trades.

 page offers comprehensive information on perpetual, futures and options trading data. During 

, the Bybit Learn team will produce articles and analyses based on the contract data to provide additional insight so that users can make more informed trades.

In some ways, exploring derivatives data is similar to walking in the dark: perhaps you’ll be able to see the road just in front of you, but you certainly won't see too far. It’s also like a puzzle in that each piece of data can give you a little information, but you certainly can't see the complete picture with just one piece. Besides, there are many ways to interpret this data, and everyone may have a different interpretation. We encourage users to study derivatives trading in general, and to become familiar with this data.

While learning about derivatives trading (and using data) can be a powerful approach, it also has limitations, and is usually more applicable to blue chip cryptocurrencies.

Learn From Smart Money: Observing Market Sentiment From Derivatives Data

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