Jupiter Surges 35% as JUP Holders Stake $123 Million to Pick Next Solana Token Launch

The native token of Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator Jupiter surged Thursday, apparently aided in part by the platform's rollout of an incentivized voting mechanism for community members to choose which tokens will next debut via its launchpad. 

JUP is up 35% in the last 24 hours to almost $0.78 at writing, according to CoinGecko. The pump has pushed the token’s market cap back over $1 billion after being below that mark across all of February.

The jump, the steepest in the token’s brief five-week history, appears due in part to Jupiter’s debut today of an elaborate community governance initiative related to its LFG token launchpad.

Last month, Jupiter’s pseudonymous founder Meow announced that Jupiter community members would soon get to decide which of a handful of pre-selected Solana-based projects should win the opportunity to launch native tokens via LFG. Today, that day arrived—and community members also learned that they stand to earn sizable rewards by participating in the process.

To vote on the proposal, which opened on the Jupiter DAO website this afternoon, community members must stake any non-zero sum of JUP tokens. The more tokens staked, the proportionally more impactful a user’s vote will be. 

According to an announcement from Jupiter this afternoon, voters will also receive monetary rewards for their participation in the LFG selection process. 100 million JUP, as well as 75% of launchpad fees from future LFG launches, have been earmarked for distribution to DAO voters. Those rewards will be distributed quarterly. 

In the hours since LFG Round 1 opened, Jupiter community members have already staked a whopping 158.46 million JUP—worth some $123.44 million—to vote on the proposal.

LFG voters will have a choice between six Solana-based projects, which have courted Jupiter community members with various outreach initiatives over the last month. Those projects include UpRock, an AI-backed data rewards network; Banx, an NFT loan service; Srcful, a decentralized virtual power plant; Sharky, another platform for NFT-backed loans; Zeus, a tool for engaging with Bitcoin on Solana; and MonkeyDEX, a gamified decentralized exchange. 

At writing, SharkyFi has emerged as the competition’s front runner, securing a dominant 39% of votes cast (with votes adjusted to reflect amounts of JUP staked by voters). Zeus is not far behind, with 33% support; in a distant third place is UpRock, with 14%. Jupiter DAO community members have until Sunday to cast their votes. 

Voters who wish to unstake their JUP from the Jupiter DAO may do so at any time. Unstaking will take 30 days to process; during that period, community members may still vote on Jupiter DAO proposals, with linearly decreasing voting power.

Though operations of the Jupiter DAO and the LFG program have been pitched as fully decentralized, the candidates for the first round of LFG voting were selected by Jupiter’s leadership. 

The company said earlier this week that candidates for future LFG cycles will continue to be selected by Jupiter leadership, or the Jupiter DAO’s Community Working Group (CWG), at least for the time being. The Jupiter DAO will eventually get to nominate projects for the program “as it matures.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward