Jupiter Founder Meow to Critics of JUP Airdrop: ‘Give Me a Break’

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While Solana DeFi protocol Jupiter staged what was by most measures a very successful airdrop launch on Wednesday, achieving a market cap of close to $800 million, the company’s critics pointed out numerous ways the company seemed to unfairly enrich itself in the process. While Jupiter’s founder, who goes by the pseudonym Meow, acknowledges he might have done some things differently, he finds the criticisms of the launch mostly based on “bad faith” and misinformation.

Meow joined Unchained to discuss the thinking behind the launch mechanics of JUP, how the prior launch of meme-coin WEN served as a dry run for JUP, whether the aggressive pricing strategy of JUP was a mistake, and what he hopes to achieve with Jupiter next, including the possibility of enabling companies of all kinds to list themselves publicly on chain.

Show highlights:

• What Jupiter is and how it extends its functionality beyond mere token swapping
• What users are primarily utilizing the dollar-cost-average feature of Jupiter for
• Meow’s background in crypto and how he ended up in the Solana ecosystem
• Why a launchpad seemed the ideal choice for Jupiter's token launch
• What prompted the decision to release WEN, a memecoin, before launching JUP
• Meow's response to criticisms regarding the launchpad's mechanics
• Whether the aggressive pricing strategy for Jupiter was a misstep
• How Meow feels about being targeted for criticism
• What's on the horizon for Jupiter as a platform following the airdrop
  

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Guest |

Meow, cofounder of Jupiter

Links |

Unchained:

Pro-Ethereum Crowd Slams Solana-based Jupiter Airdrop as ‘Absolute Trash’

Jupiter Traders Claim Whopping 545 Million JUP Tokens in First 8 Hours of Airdrop

Jupiter’s Airdropped Token JUP Debuts at a $878 Million Market Cap

Breakpoint 2023 Meow conference

The Block: Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter confirms token release date

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.