Jupiter Launching Solana Meme Coin With An Airdrop Even Bigger Than JUP

Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator Jupiter is set to airdrop its own JUP token on January 31 for nearly one million eligible wallets. But the platform will test out its launchpad before then with an airdrop for a meme coin—and the aggregator’s founder says it’ll be an even larger drop than for JUP.

Jupiter’s launchpad will debut a token this week from Ovols, a “DeFi meets NFTs” protocol on Solana. The coin wasn’t created by Jupiter itself, but the protocol will use its technology to debut the meme coin before attempting to launch JUP to the masses.

We knew that Jupiter planned to help launch a meme coin before the JUP airdrop, but otherwise the details were unclear. We didn’t know whose coin it would be, or who would be eligible for the drop. But now we know that the airdrop is planned to be even larger than that of JUP itself.

“With even more airdrop recipients than JUP, it will be a much lower stakes, fun, but similarly extremely technically challenging test for the launchpad,” wrote pseudonymous Jupiter founder Meow on Twitter.

Ovols will provide 1% of its meme coin supply to Jupiter for the service, Meow wrote, with 75% of that set to go to the upcoming JUP DAO—a community organization that oversees the Jupiter (JUP) token—with the 25% share going to Jupiter’s team.

Jupiter has yet to announce a date for the Ovols meme coin airdrop, but with a stated target of this week, it’s sure to be in the next few days. According to Meow, Jupiter’s launchpad will take on further projects starting in February, following the planned January 31 airdrop for JUP.

Meme coins have seen surging popularity on Solana in recent weeks, although they’re famously volatile and can spike or plunge sharply with little obvious reason.

BONK, a meme coin handed out to the Solana community in December 2022, saw a dramatic spike in value late last year—so much so that a token airdrop valued at $300 in 2022 was valued above $500,000 a year later. But BONK’s price has fallen 69% over the last month since peaking on December 15.

Another Solana meme coin, Dogwifhat (WIF), has surged in recent weeks… yet it’s already down 47% after setting a new all-time high price less than a week ago.

Meme coins aren’t known to be the most stable crypto assets, but airdrops bring plenty of short-term excitement—and can pump hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value into crypto communities. Jupiter has two such airdrops planned in the next several days.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.