The core contributor of the most representative Meme coin in the Solana ecosystem, BONK, Nom, recently participated in an interview on the "One-on-one" podcast. Emphasizing that BONK has surpassed a mere Meme coin phase, the interview covered various topics such as the current bear market strategy, security enhancements following the BONK.fun domain hijacking incident, institutional funds and ETF narratives, brand IP expansion, and future vision.

BONK Recent Developments and Market Sentiment

Maximus: Welcome to the "One-on-one Podcast." Today, we have invited Nom, a core contributor to BONK. Nom, many significant events have taken place regarding BONK recently, transforming it from a Meme coin to a vast ecosystem with products like BONK.fun. How does the current bear market feel for you?

Nom: Undoubtedly, we are in a bear market cycle of about 15 to 16 months. The good news is that there has been some rebound in the overall crypto market, and the traditional stock market remains strong under macro pressures. However, for BONK and the community, our goal is the same as in 2023—how to create exciting things during a bear market, how to find teams willing to build products, reinvigorate interest in on-chain activities, and prepare for the next full-blown alt season.

So, we are refocusing on what truly creates value for the community, not just serving token prices but providing coin holders with more engaging experiences. How to find more meaningful partnerships? How to position ourselves early before the next wave of on-chain trends arrives—whether it's DeFi, the Meme coin craze, RWA and on-chain collectibles, or the AI metaverse race. Each cycle brings something exciting. BONK's goal is to be ahead of these trends.

Domain Hijacking Incident and Lessons Learned

Maximus: I followed the domain hijacking incident in March. Your handling of the situation with a 110% reimbursement left a profound impression on me. Looking back, what was the most crucial lesson in terms of security that this incident brought to you?

Nom: We were fortunate—the team responded promptly, identified the issue immediately, and quickly informed users within our ecosystem. The smart contract itself was secure, but the front end was breached by a third party. Such attacks fall under social engineering tactics, targeting not only crypto teams but also top-level domain providers and other tech ecosystem participants. This situation will not dissipate in the short term and will persist throughout the foreseeable bear market cycles.

The BONK ecosystem relies on multiple decentralized teams, each with their own security measures, and collaborates with different third-party vendors. The composability of the crypto ecosystem is its strength, but it also brings many implicit risks. Our current focus is on conducting a thorough review of the security configuration of all products, examining potential attack vectors. Partners such as Raydium are also undergoing a series of technical updates. The BONK DAO also relies on a multi-signature architecture, which theoretically can prevent situations similar to the Drift exploit. The most important lesson is: never think you are secure enough—you are always in an arms race with those trying to exploit you.

Post-event, we were able to fully reimburse and additionally compensate users. The assets of affected users were frozen for several weeks, we identified all impacted addresses, and distributed compensation one by one, which is crucial for rebuilding platform trust. Of course, dealing with a small-scale event is much easier compared to seven-figure theft cases—we also hope that the Drift and Aave incidents will be the largest issues to deal with in this cycle.

Founding Principles and Trust Building

Nom (Continuation): BONK originated in the aftermath of the 2022 Breakpoint conference, after the collapse of FTX, when the entire ecosystem was in chaos—many teams lost their project treasuries, investment funds, and even user assets. At that time, we launched BONK with the goal of creating a new token that could be used across protocols in the post-FTX era. Even to this day, some are still pursuing claims against FTX, demonstrating the significant and enduring risks of working with trusted third parties. Therefore, we must continue to drive transparency improvements, establish better insurance mechanisms, and enable protocols to recover losses when issues arise.

BONK.fun Needs and Growth Catalysts

Maximus: BONK.fun's one-year anniversary is approaching (around April 25), and the Q1 transaction volume data looks very impressive. What do you think drove this growth?

Nom: As a brand, BONK has the ability to drive users to various products. This has been verified previously on Bonk Bot, and we are now relaunching Bonk Bet with new partners, expected to go live in a few weeks. The strong user base in the community is the best resource for product bootstrapping. Of course, there are now many launchpads on Solana competing for market share, which is a good thing as it helps identify which opportunities are truly valuable.

As for the upcoming catalysts, there are several areas worth noting: the stablecoin market landscape (aside from USDC and USDT, Paxos's USDG may enter Solana, bringing new opportunities); more importantly, changing the token launch experience—not just altering the launch model, but transforming the overall token trading experience.

The current issue is that the on-chain behavior of "trench warfare traders" has undergone a significant shift: those who profit tend to have extremely short holding periods. In a bear market, everyone tends to lock in profits quickly to survive, leading the market into an overarching "scarcity mindset." To reverse this situation, a sustained bull run is needed to switch the market back to an "abundance mindset," which would take 3 to 12 months and a real coin price increase to shift beliefs. I currently see this trend emerging on Ethereum and hope it spreads to a broader market.

Institutional Demand and the ETF Narrative

Maximus: There is currently much discussion about ETFs and institutional interest in digital assets. Can a meme coin like BONK, which has evolved into a full-fledged ecosystem, benefit from this grand narrative?

Nom: When discussing ETFs and institutional demand now, the most easily referenced assets are, of course, Bitcoin and Ethereum, as there are numerous ETFs in continuous development. Currently, the main buying pressure comes from "price-insensitive buyers" such as MicroStrategy and BitMine—their strategy is to buy in as much as possible every month, leveraging the public debt market to increase holdings to enhance company value, then issue more debt and stock, forming a positive feedback loop.

The logic of ETFs is to provide entry for institutional investors who originally did not have a crypto allocation. In the past, no financial advisor or large institution would recommend clients allocate to crypto assets, but there were always individual fund managers holding FARTCOIN or BONK in personal accounts, or some family offices achieving good results through trading meme coins and altcoins.

As we enter 2026, this situation is beginning to change—major banks in the U.S., Europe, and Asia are starting to advise clients to allocate 1% to 5% of their portfolios to crypto assets. When retirement accounts start dollar-cost averaging into crypto assets regardless of price, it means the token price floor will be more stable, and the selling pressure during each market correction will correspondingly weaken.

Regarding BONK, the narrative of "why institutions should allocate to community tokens" has not yet fully formed, but this direction is taking shape. We have already launched ETPs and applied for ETFs, and the collaboration between Pudgy Penguins and VanEck is a good example—cultural coins can also seek institutional recognition. For BONK, the fee revenue generated by the product will be used to buy back tokens, injecting value into entities like BNKK, which actively reduces the circulating supply in the market without relying entirely on external fund inflows.

On the other hand, projects where tokens are continually unlocked and the supply keeps expanding find it challenging to gain institutional trust—unless you, like Hyperliquid, have significant protocol fee revenue supporting direct buybacks.

Expand BONK IP (GIPHY, etc.)

Maximus: BONK has made its way to GIPHY. Was this a deliberate strategy or organic growth?

Nom: Since the inception of BONK, a group of strong content creators has been consistently producing content—they have been creating memes on Discord, Twitter, and Telegram, developing various character images for BONK, and participating in the development of peripheral products and anime series. This has been an organic process of finding the brand's position.

The next question is: how do we get this content in front of more people? Content propagation is competitive, with various brands bombarding users' attention. We have spent several years refining BONK's content ecosystem and brand image, including events like the Guinness World Record challenge and charity collaborations, accumulating a solid foundation of brand awareness. The current stage is about taking this brand to a broader audience—not just within the crypto community but also outside of it.

Pudgy Penguins have done well in this regard, demonstrating how to bring a Web3 brand into the view of regular consumers. BONK is also learning from this path, and expanding around the IP is one of the current key priorities.

Maximus: Does BONK have any upcoming plans to further expand into peripherals, film/TV, or partnerships?

Nom: We previously had the "Bao Bao Series" in the peripherals area, which was well received by the community (users could donate to the animal welfare charity Buddies for Paws by purchasing peripherals, with all proceeds going through BFP to donate 100% to animal protection organizations worldwide). At this year's Breakpoint conference, we tested the waters with BONK figurines and blind boxes, and the community's feedback was very positive.

In the coming weeks and months, we will increase our focus in this direction, emphasizing exploration of whether BONK's IP can appeal to consumers beyond the crypto community. While engaging our own community is important, what we really aim to achieve is to make BONK interesting and appealing to ordinary people outside the crypto community. This is currently a key strategic priority for us.

Community and Developer Acknowledgments

Name: Whether you are helping to build the Ukrainian community for an organization, driving the development of BONK's Asian community, or overseeing team work across different functional lines, the feedback from contributors around the globe is extremely valuable to us. In the NFT community and Layer 1 ecosystem, events often have the power to bring together a truly cohesive group of people. BONK's goal is the same as Pudgy Penguins—to continuously create exciting reasons to turn passive holders into active brand ambassadors.

In a bear market, many people enter a "waiting mode," just hoping to survive. But if you don't take proactive action, it's easy to be left behind. So we have always been looking for opportunities for those who take the initiative and lead the trend.

How to Engage with the BONK Ecosystem

Maximus: What advice do you have for newcomers who want to engage with the BONK ecosystem?

Name: The simplest and most direct ways are as follows:

First, pay attention to the BONK bi-weekly newsletter, which is the most comprehensive channel to understand the dynamics of the entire ecosystem, summarizing the latest progress of each team every two weeks.

Second, join BONK's Telegram, Discord, and Twitter, where new user incentive activities are announced first-hand, such as Bonk Trade promotional activities or information on the launch of Bonk Fun's new products.

Third, if you are developing a product or seeking advice, funding, or partnership opportunities, you can contact us through BONK's partnership application form. Our colleagues responsible for partnerships and business development will carefully consider each application.

The simplest way is still: go build directly, and then showcase what you have built to us.

User Guidance and Consumer Applications

Maximus: In the next year, what do you most want BONK to be known for?

Name: If I can only say one thing, I hope BONK can create a truly exciting new product. When we collaborated with the Bonk Bot team initially, there were hardly any transaction terminals on Solana, and everyone heavily relied on the EVM ecosystem. The work of the Bonk Bot team truly brought more attention and opportunities to Solana. Later, our layout in the Launchpad field also provided new opportunities for people.

What I want to do next is to make a breakthrough beyond DeFi infrastructure and into the consumer application layer—creating something that makes people "feel like they are not using a crypto product." We have several directions that we are advancing with partners, but there is only one core goal: to make it easy for ordinary people to enter the crypto ecosystem without having to go through the various barriers and pains of self-custody. I hope that BONK will be remembered in the future for this: lowering barriers so that more people are willing to manage their assets themselves, rather than being scared off by complexity.

Maximus: The conversation with Nom was very insightful. Thank you all for watching. See you next time!

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