Solana: Jupiter (JUP) Price Tumbles Amid Controversy

On Wednesday (January 31), the highly anticipated Jupiter (JUP) airdrop took place. Jupiter, a decentralized exchange aggregator built on the Solana blockchain, has been making waves in the crypto space lately, even surpassing Uniswap in terms of trading volume. However, the airdrop, while initially boosting JUP’s value, has been followed by controversy.

Jupiter (JUP) Airdrop Stats

Tom Wan, a researcher at 21.co, the parent company of 21Shares, commented on the magnitude of the airdrop, stating, “It was one of the largest airdrops on Solana ever, with over 440,000 addresses claiming 622 million JUP tokens, valued at approximately $3.6 billion. Remarkably, 54% of eligible wallets have yet to claim their JUP, leaving approximately 378 million JUP unclaimed.”

1/ One of the largest Airdrop on @solana is live

Over 440k Addresses claimed 622M ($3.6B) JUP token from @JupiterExchange. 54% of the eligible wallets haven’t claimed JUP yet, and there are ~378M unclaimed JUP pic.twitter.com/7my3PLTo5I

— Tom Wan (@tomwanhh) February 1, 2024

Wan went on to provide insights into the distribution of JUP tokens, revealing that a majority of claimants received less than 1,000 JUP. He stated, “59% of claimants, or 261,000 wallets, received only 200 JUP, while approximately 1,500 wallets received between 100,000 and 200,000 JUP. Notably, those who received higher airdrop amounts appear to be holding onto their JUP tokens, with 72% of recipients of less than 1000 JUP having already sold their tokens.”

Regarding the Solana network itself, it continued to perform exceptionally well during the airdrop event. Solana handled 13% more transactions than in the past 90 days, maintaining a block time of approximately 400 milliseconds. The network also experienced a surge in active addresses, reaching a one-year high on the day of the JUP airdrop. However, Solana handled this increased activity perfectly.

Despite the average transaction fee doubling compared to the previous day, it remains relatively low at around $0.017 per transaction. Additionally, the minimum priority fee on the Solana network remained at 0, indicating that the network still accommodated users’ transactions without significant fees.

JUP Price Quadruples, Then Plunges On Controversy

Initially, the JUP token’s price surged to over $2 on some exchanges, such as KuCoin, quadrupling its value. However, this enthusiasm was short-lived due to controversial actions taken by the Jupiter team. It allegedly conducted a large-scale public token sale, sparking outrage, fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) within the crypto community.

Among others, crypto analyst Lord Ashdrake expressed his concerns, stating, “We literally bought into an OpenMarket sale for JUP, akin to an IPO on the stock market.” Similarly, Adam Cochran, a partner at CEHV, criticized the team’s actions, highlighting that they retained a significant portion of tokens without a lockup period.

So [Jupiter] gave 50% of token to themselves, it was not their first token, used their own platform which also paid self, pulled liquidity from the pool in cash, gave a cut to the dev team. So cash out $30m day one with no lockup, and still own 50%? Shitty antics throwing away reputation of what could have been a *very* successful business long term.

In response to the criticism, Jupiter co-founder Meow defended the team’s decisions, clarifying that they only sold 250 million JUP tokens and reduced the sales ratio from 20% to 2.5%. Meow emphasized the team’s willingness to experiment with new concepts and prioritize the community’s interests.

Meow stated, “We are doing so to figure out a good open market dynamic that prioritizes users, does not wreck early launch pool buyers, and does not demoralize community hodlers. We think this system is a good one because it compels the team to price it reasonably and strengthens alignment between early buyers, the team, and community hodlers.”

Hi all, i got advice in discord to be even more clear so let me say it simply:

If i did an OTC deal or a regular IDO, we would have gotten a similar amount if not more without any of the confusion that comes with pioneering new concepts and absolutely zero risk. Trust me, that…

— meow 🥧 (@weremeow) February 1, 2024

Buy Or Sell Jupiter (JUP) Now?

Despite the controversy, Jupiter presented impressive statistics for January, including being the most-used trading platform in DeFi, having a direct 80% organic volume, and being the most-used protocol on the Solana network. The project also ranked among the top 2 by volume on CoinGecko and was one of the leading perpetual platforms with $1.4 billion in volume over the past week.

So, while the Jupiter (JUP) airdrop may have faced initial controversy, the project is still showcasing remarkable potential. As it positions itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum’s Uniswap, the history of Uniswap’s UNI token price may suggest JUP’s promising future, provided it navigates its early tokenomics challenges effectively.

At press time, JUP traded at $0.6118 on Binance.

Featured image from Kraken Blog, chart from TradingView.com

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