From BONK on SIX to Policy Shifts in Washington: What the Last 24 Hours Reveal About Crypto’s Next Phase

Some market days are defined by a single dominant story; others feel like a mosaic. The last 24 hours clearly fall into the second category. A Solana memecoin launched as a regulated product on Switzerland’s flagship exchange, a former US president floated the idea of abolishing income tax, a major stablecoin received formal recognition in Abu Dhabi, and billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin and Ether options came up for expiry.

At first glance, these developments may look unrelated. Taken together, though, they sketch out a bigger picture: digital assets are no longer a self-contained niche. They sit at the crossroads of retail culture, institutional product design, macroeconomic policy and legal enforcement. Understanding that intersection is increasingly important for anyone trying to make sense of where the space is heading.

1. BONK Lands on SIX: When Memes Meet Swiss Market Structure

The headline that turned the most heads was arguably the listing of a BONK ETP on SIX, the main stock exchange in Switzerland. BONK, a canine-themed token native to the Solana ecosystem, began life as a classic internet meme: community-driven, high-volatility and deeply intertwined with social media. Its arrival in ETP form on a regulated national exchange marks a symbolic shift in how such assets can be packaged and accessed.

Exchange-traded products are designed to track the performance of an underlying asset while making it accessible via traditional brokerage accounts. For institutions with strict mandates, buying BONK directly on a crypto venue may be operationally or legally challenging. An ETP does not erase the underlying volatility, but it introduces guardrails: custody is handled by regulated providers, reporting standards are clearer and investors interact with the product through familiar infrastructure.

There are at least three reasons this matters beyond the memecoin in question:

• Financialisation of culture. BONK’s origin story is rooted in online culture, yet the asset now sits in the same product family as more conventional ETPs. That blurring of lines between cultural assets and traditional wrappers is likely to continue.
• Signal about Solana’s status. For a Solana-native token to qualify for an exchange product on SIX, providers must be confident about underlying network infrastructure, liquidity and operational resilience.
• Investor-education challenge. Wrapping a highly volatile token in a familiar structure can create an illusion of safety. Providers and commentators will need to communicate clearly that an ETP format does not change the economic characteristics of the underlying asset.

In other words, the BONK listing is not just a curiosity; it is part of a broader trend in which traditional financial markets are learning to host assets that began as internet-native experiments.

2. On-Ramps and Infrastructure: Trust Wallet, Apple Pay and a US$7 Billion Korean Bet

While BONK was stepping into the ETP arena, the industry quietly made progress on a different front: onboarding and infrastructure.

Trust Wallet announced that it now supports Apple Pay for crypto purchases in more than 45 countries. That may sound like a small user-interface upgrade, but it reflects a deeper shift. The friction between “I’m curious about digital assets” and “I own my first token” has traditionally been high. By integrating a mainstream payment rail, non-custodial wallets can offer a more familiar path for first-time users while keeping self-custody as the default.

In Asia, a different kind of infrastructure play emerged. Naver, one of South Korea’s largest technology companies, and Upbit, a leading digital-asset platform, unveiled plans to invest roughly US$7 billion into combined AI and blockchain initiatives following a corporate merger. The exact allocation across projects is still to be disclosed, but the intent is clear: to build data, identity and financial platforms that blend large-scale machine learning with distributed ledgers.

Together, these developments highlight two complementary forces:

• Consumer-grade access. Integrations like Apple Pay lower the barrier to entry for individuals, especially in regions where card-based payments are entrenched and app-store distribution matters.
• Enterprise-grade infrastructure. Multi-billion-dollar capital commitments from large technology and financial players suggest that blockchain is increasingly seen as a long-term platform layer, not just a speculative trade.

For investors, the message is that adoption is not only happening through headline-grabbing tokens or ETFs. It is also progressing through quiet, incremental improvements in how people and institutions interact with digital value.

3. Regulation in Focus: RLUSD, XRP and the Long Tail of Terra

Alongside product and infrastructure news, regulators and courts added their own lines to the story.

In Abu Dhabi’s international financial center, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) formally recognised Ripple’s RLUSD as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token. In practical terms, that designation means licensed institutions in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) can use RLUSD within a defined regulatory framework, much like other well-known fiat-referenced tokens. For the broader ecosystem, it is one more example of regional regulators moving from broad principles to concrete categories and labels.

In Dubai’s DIFC court system, judges ordered a global, open-ended asset freeze related to Justin Sun in connection with missing reserves backing the TUSD stablecoin. The details of the case are complex and involve cross-border legal cooperation, but the signal is straightforward: when questions emerge around how reserves are managed, the legal response is increasingly swift and coordinated.

Meanwhile, the legal consequences of the Terra collapse continue to unfold. Do Kwon has asked a US judge to limit any sentence related to US proceedings to a maximum of five years, even as he faces separate potential penalties in South Korea that could be substantially higher. Regardless of how the individual cases are resolved, these proceedings reinforce a trend: large-scale failures in the digital-asset space are now followed by lengthy legal review, not just market commentary.

Viewed together, RLUSD’s recognition, enforcement action around TUSD reserves and the ongoing Terra cases point toward an environment where:

• Stablecoins are being brought under clearer regulatory categories, often with explicit references to fiat backing and governance standards.
• Courts and regulators are more willing to take strong remedial action when there are questions about reserve transparency or disclosure.
• Past crises are not simply “priced in” and forgotten; they shape how lawmakers and supervisors evaluate new projects.

For builders, that means more predictable rules but also higher expectations. For users, it gradually increases the importance of understanding which jurisdictions and frameworks govern the assets they interact with.

4. Governance and Strategy: UNI, Optimism and ALT5 Sigma

While courts and regulators were busy, several major projects were engaged in their own form of policymaking: protocol governance and corporate restructuring.

At Uniswap, the proposal known as “UNIfication” cleared the Temp Check stage with more than 63 million UNI voting in favour. Although final details are still being refined, the initiative aims to streamline governance, align incentives for active participants and position the protocol for multi-chain expansion. Beyond the specifics, the vote highlights how on-chain communities can coordinate around long-term strategy using token-based mechanisms.

On the Layer-2 front, an interesting moment of self-reflection came from Optimism. A co-founder acknowledged that the project had at times been “overloaded” and lacked a fully coherent strategy, particularly during periods of rapid growth. In response, the team is now restructuring around an enterprise-focused vision, with an emphasis on providing robust infrastructure for organisations that want to build on Ethereum scaling solutions. That shift does not abandon the consumer ecosystem, but it recognises that long-term sustainability may depend on serving institutional use cases as well as retail activity.

Finally, ALT5 Sigma, the company behind World Liberty Financial (WLFI), announced changes in its senior leadership at a time when the project is under heightened scrutiny from US political actors. Without speculating on motives, leadership rotation under external pressure is a reminder that token projects which intersect with national politics face a different category of reputational and compliance risk than purely technical protocols.

Taken together, these developments show three layers of adaptation:

• Decentralised governance maturing. Uniswap’s process illustrates that token holders can move beyond routine parameter tweaks toward more structural reforms.
• Scaling projects rethinking their audience. Optimism’s pivot toward enterprise infrastructure suggests that rollups may increasingly compete not just for traders, but for long-term application builders.
• Corporate governance under the spotlight. WLFI’s leadership changes underscore how closely public narratives and internal decision-making can be linked in politically sensitive environments.

5. Behavioural Signals: ENA, Personal Brands and Portfolio Noise

Not all the day’s stories were about institutions. One that drew outsized attention on social platforms involved Arthur HayesENA token. Public on-chain data show Hayes recently acquired around 873,671 ENA (roughly US$245,000) at approximately US$0.281 per token, just two weeks after selling roughly 5.02 million ENA at about US$0.275.

Commentators were quick to frame this as a classic example of “selling low and buying higher,” but the reality is more nuanced. High-profile investors often manage complex portfolios across time horizons and venues. A modest difference in average purchase and sale price can look striking on social media, yet represent only a small adjustment in a broader strategy.

For observers, the more constructive takeaway is not whether a particular individual “timed” ENA perfectly, but what this kind of episode says about behavioural finance in digital assets:

• Public blockchains make portfolio changes visible in near real time, which can amplify narratives around individual trades.
• Personal brands play a significant role in how information is interpreted; the same trade from an unknown wallet might attract far less attention.
• Short-term entries and exits, even by experienced participants, are noisy and do not necessarily convey clear long-term signals.

In a space where on-chain transparency is a feature, learning to distinguish between meaningful positioning changes and incidental portfolio adjustments is a valuable skill.

6. Macro Overhang: Tax Talk and Derivatives Gravity

Beyond sector-specific developments, two macro headlines stood out.

First, former President Donald Trump suggested that, in the future, the United States could potentially reduce or even eliminate income tax by relying more heavily on tariff revenue. This idea is politically controversial and would require extensive legislative work to become reality. From a macro perspective, it raises questions about the long-term composition of US fiscal revenue and its interaction with global trade.

For digital-asset markets, the proposal is not immediately actionable policy, but it reinforces a theme: fiscal decisions and trade frameworks influence currency dynamics, interest-rate expectations and risk appetite. If investors perceive a shift toward less predictable revenue sources or larger deficits, that can affect how they value both the dollar and dollar-denominated assets over time.

Second, roughly US$15.4 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum options are expiring. Monthly or quarterly option expiries have become key landmarks in the crypto calendar. They often coincide with repositioning by market makers and hedged funds, who adjust exposure as contracts roll off. While not every expiry produces visible volatility, the sheer scale of open interest underscores how central derivatives have become to price discovery.

Options markets are where traders express views on volatility and tail risks. Implied volatility levels, skew between call and put demand, and the distribution of strike prices all provide information about how participants see the balance of upside and downside over different horizons. For longer-term investors, these metrics can function as sentiment indicators rather than direct trading tools.

7. What Does All of This Add Up To?

Looking across BONK’s ETP debut, Trust Wallet’s Apple Pay integration, Naver and Upbit’s AI-blockchain investment, RLUSD’s regulatory recognition, enforcement actions around XRP and Terra, governance shifts at Uniswap and Optimism, leadership changes at WLFI, ENA-related behavioural noise, Trump’s tax comments and massive options expiry, a few themes stand out.

First, financialisation is accelerating. From memecoins on SIX to sophisticated options markets, the toolkit for expressing views on digital assets continues to expand. This brings efficiency but also responsibility: product wrappers can make assets easier to access without changing their underlying risk profile.

Second, regulation is becoming more granular. Authorities are moving from broad statements about digital assets to highly specific designations, such as Abu Dhabi’s classification of RLUSD or Dubai’s asset-freeze orders. Projects that engage constructively with this process may gain a durable advantage.

Third, governance is in the spotlight. Whether in decentralised protocols like Uniswap and Optimism or corporate entities like ALT5 Sigma, decision-making structures are being tested and, in some cases, redesigned under market and political pressure.

Fourth, macro still sets the tone. Options expiries and debates about the future shape of US fiscal policy remind us that global liquidity conditions, interest rates and currency expectations remain key inputs into asset pricing, including for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

For investors and builders, the main implication is that there is no single driver of digital-asset markets anymore. Culture, regulation, macroeconomics and technology all interact. Tracking that interaction — instead of focusing narrowly on one token or one narrative — is increasingly what separates short-lived excitement from durable understanding.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and it should not be treated as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any digital asset or traditional security. Market conditions and policy decisions can change rapidly. Readers should conduct their own research and consider consulting qualified professionals before making any financial decisions.