The highly anticipated Jupiter (JUP) airdrop took place on Wednesday (January 31). Jupiter, a decentralized exchange aggregator built on the Solana blockchain, has been gaining attention in the crypto space, even surpassing Uniswap in terms of trading volume. However, the airdrop, while initially boosting JUP’s value, has been followed by controversy.
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.”
Wan provided 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.”
In addition, the Solana network itself continued to perform exceptionally well during the airdrop event. 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.
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 Open Market 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.
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.
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.
At press time, JUP traded at $0.6118 on Binance.
In conclusion, the Jupiter (JUP) airdrop may have faced initial controversy, but the project is still showcasing remarkable potential as it positions itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum’s Uniswap. With the history of Uniswap’s UNI token price suggesting JUP’s promising future, the project’s ability to navigate its early tokenomics challenges effectively will be crucial. However, it is important to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
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