Solana continues its quest to be the buzziest blockchain, with a renewed wave of enthusiasm for the network recently emerging. This week, the ecosystem's Jupiter DEX surpassed Uniswap in daily trading volume, marking a trend that is becoming increasingly frequent. As of writing, Jupiter Exchange boasts a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $513 million, outpacing Uniswap V3’s $475 million.
Source: coingecko.com
The surge in trading volume on Jupiter is largely attributed to the launch of meme-coin, WEN. The Jupiter team utilized this launch to test their airdrop functionality, distributing the meme-coin to over a million eligible users before the airdrop of their official governance token, JUP.
WEN is touted as the first community coin tied to a fractional NFT. The pseudonymous founder of Jupiter penned a poem titled “A Love Letter to Wen Bros,” which was then divided into a trillion pieces, each trading as a standard Solana token. Ownership of a WEN token signifies a proportional share in the poem.
After its launch, the token’s value increased 7x and is currently trading with a market capitalization of around $150 million.
The launch also marked the inaugural event of Jupiter's LFG Launchpad, which aims to provide comprehensive support for on-chain project launches. The Jupiter DAO is set to begin approving new projects for the launchpad starting February 1st.
A significant portion of Jupiter’s volume is driven by trading pairs like SOL/USDC and USDC/USDT, along with various meme-coins such as WIF, BOZO, and BONK. The high transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain have prompted meme-coin traders to explore opportunities on Solana, thereby boosting DEX trading volume on the blockchain.
While the long-term impact of the meme-coin frenzy is uncertain, meme-coins undeniably have the potential to attract users and boost trading volume, and Solana has been capitalizing on this exceptionally well.
All eyes are now on January 31st when Jupiter plans to airdrop its governance token, JUP, to users. With pre-market JUP tokens valued at $0.61, the total value of the airdrop could exceed $600 million, potentially sparking another surge in DEX trading activity on Solana.
Interestingly, the founder of Jupiter hinted at the team’s intention to airdrop JUP tokens “every jupuary.” This suggests a strategy to consistently engage and reward users with JUP tokens yearly. This could potentially attract airdrop hunters, who will trade on the exchange to farm tokens, and further increase trading volumes.
