Today’s market is in a "class president election including clause" mode, which is interesting—meaning, there’s a tight selection process happening to determine which projects deserve institutional attention and which are just noise.

So yesterday over the weekend, geopolitical tensions spiked dramatically between the US-Israel vs Iran, and the global markets moved quickly. Nasdaq and S&P 500 recorded their biggest monthly declines since March last year. Gold jumped above $5,300, oil rose to $75. But what’s interesting? The crypto market seems somewhat controllable in this situation—Bitcoin briefly dropped to $63K but recovered quite well. Now BTC is trading around $77.53K. The Fear & Greed index remains in the Extreme Fear zone (10), but there’s no uncontrolled panic selling like before.

On the regulatory side, there are some important developments. The new SEC chair recently admitted that the US previously "missed important opportunities" in crypto and is now playing catch-up. In the UK, regulators are considering allowing crypto as a payment method for gambling. Minnesota plans to ban crypto ATMs to prevent fraud targeting the elderly.

Now to the project updates worth noting:

Uniswap just launched a proposal for a multi-chain fee sharing mechanism. The plan is to transfer at least 1/6 of transaction fees from liquidity providers to a "token bucket" that will be distributed to UNI holders who burn an equivalent amount of UNI. Currently, UNI is at $3.27. Meanwhile, the "Aave Will Win" proposal has been approved—this basically shifts Aave Labs to a fully token-centric model, with 100% of product revenue going directly to AAVE token holders. AAVE is now priced at $94.60.

Gold tokenized (XAUT/PAXG) is trending because traditional gold markets are closed on weekends, so gold-tokenized assets have become the main price discovery mechanism during geopolitical shocks—peaking at $5,400.

But the most interesting is the wave of institutional adoption happening. SoFi—an US bank with 13.7 million users—now officially supports Solana deposits. This is no small thing. It means US public banks now see Solana as on par with BTC and ETH as an institutional-grade asset. SOL is currently at $86.50.

Morgan Stanley applied for a US trust bank license to expand crypto services—they want to offer native custody, staking, lending for Bitcoin and Solana. This is a significant shift from being just a "distributor" to a "custodian." If approved, it will open large-scale access for pension funds and insurance funds.

Citi plans to launch an institutional Bitcoin storage service this year. With $30 trillion AUM, their presence will reshape the competitive landscape. They focus on tax reporting, compliance audits, and direct API integration with asset management—not just pure crypto custody.

MoonPay launched PYUSDx—a framework for stablecoins backed by PayPal PYUSD. This is a "plug-and-play" model for apps wanting to launch their own branded stablecoins without rebuilding compliance from scratch.

Barclays is exploring a blockchain-based payment platform, potentially combining stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Direct competition with JPM Coin.

Vitalik Buterin outlined a two-phase Ethereum scalability roadmap. Short-term: Multidimensional Gas for separate pricing of storage vs computation. Long-term: zkEVM integration and Peer DAS for 1000x throughput improvement. This confirms Ethereum’s evolution from a simple smart contract platform to a global settlement layer that is ultra-efficient.

SBI Holdings announced the launch of yen-backed stablecoin JPYSC. This is a Type III Electronic Payment Instrument under the amended Payment Services Act in Japan—basically an important bridge for B2B settlements and a practical "Yen Digital" in the global financial ecosystem.

X platform introduced a "Paid Collaboration" label and tightened crypto policies. Basically excluding financial products—including crypto—from some paid partnership benefits. This is a response to regulator demands for transparency. As a result, crypto marketing shifts toward organic reach or heavily reviewed official ads—less room for deceptive "silent marketing" that has misled retail investors.

Michael Saylor posted an update on Bitcoin tracker again. Widely interpreted as a signal that MicroStrategy is approaching the announcement of their 99th Bitcoin acquisition. With a massive "$42/$42" financing plan ($84B via equity and debt to buy BTC), this move tests the boundaries of corporate treasury management while providing a strong psychological floor for BTC price.

ENA token recently opened with 0.53% of the total supply (~$4.3M) in circulation.

Overall, the market is in a "class president election including clause" phase—determining which projects are institutional-grade, sustainable, or just hype. Volatility exists, but sentiment has started shifting from pure fear to calculated positioning. Worth monitoring closely over the next few weeks.