The much-anticipated Jupiter (JUP) airdrop took place on Wednesday (January 31). Jupiter, a decentralized exchange integration service built on the Solana blockchain, is attracting attention in the cryptocurrency industry, surpassing Uniswap in terms of trading volume. However, while the airdrop initially increased the value of JUP, controversy ensued.
Tom Wan, a researcher at 21.co, the parent company of 21Shares, commented on the scale of the airdrop: Approximately 3.6 billion dollars. Shockingly, 54% of eligible wallets have not yet claimed their JUP, with approximately 378 million JUP unclaimed.”
Wan provided insight into the distribution of JUP tokens, revealing that the majority of claimants received less than 1,000 JUP. He said: “59% of claimants, or 261,000 wallets, received only 200 JUP, while approximately 1,500 wallets received between 100,000 and 200,000 JUP. In particular, those who received higher airdrop amounts appear to be holding on to JUP tokens, with 72% of recipients receiving less than 1000 JUP having already sold their tokens.”
Additionally, the Solana network itself continued to perform well during the airdrop event. The average transaction fee has doubled from the previous day, but remains relatively low at around $0.017 per transaction. Additionally, the minimum priority fee on the Solana network has remained at 0, indicating that the network is still accepting transactions from users without large fees.
Initially, the price of the JUP token soared above $2 on some exchanges such as KuCoin, quadrupling its value. However, this enthusiasm was short-lived due to controversial steps taken by the Jupiter team. It reportedly sparked anger, fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) within the cryptocurrency community by conducting a large public token sale.
Among others, cryptocurrency analyst Lord Ashdrake expressed concern: “We literally bought the open market sale of JUP, similar to an IPO on the stock market.” Likewise, Adam Cochran, partner at CEHV, criticized the team’s actions, highlighting that it held a significant portion of its tokens without a lock-up period.
In response to these criticisms, Jupiter co-founder Meow defended the team’s decision, clarifying that only 250 million JUP tokens were sold, reducing the sales percentage from 20% to 2.5%. Meow emphasized the team’s willingness to experiment with new concepts and prioritize the interests of the community.
Despite the controversy, Jupiter presented impressive January statistics, including being the most used trading platform in DeFi, 80% direct organic trading volume, and the most used protocol on the Solana Network. The project is also ranked in the top two by trading volume on CoinGecko and was one of the leading perpetual platforms, with trading volume of $1.4 billion last week.
At the time of reporting, JUP was trading at $0.6118 on Binance.
In conclusion, the Jupiter (JUP) airdrop may have faced initial controversy, but the project still shows incredible potential, positioning itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum’s Uniswap. While Uniswap’s UNI token price history suggests a promising future for JUP, the project’s ability to effectively navigate nascent tokenomics challenges will be critical. However, it is important to do your own research before making any investment decisions.
source link