Jupiter, Solana’s leading decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator, will use 50% of its protocol fee revenue to repurchase $JUP tokens, said Meow, the project’s pseudonymous founder, in a recent statement at Istanbul 2025, Jupiter’s inaugural community conference.
Jupiter also announced a slew of project developments and ventures.
Based on data from data analytics platform Syndica, Jupiter generated $102 million in revenue in 2024, meaning that $50 million could be earmarked for a buyback. According to CoinMarketCap, this buyback would equate to roughly 2.9% of JUP’s current market capitalization of approximately $1.69 billion.
Making $JUP the GOAT Token.
— Jupiter 🪐 (@JupiterExchange) January 26, 2025
Solana Rising
A token buyback, a common strategy used by crypto projects, could lead to increased scarcity and token value while reducing circulating supply to manage inflation. The strategy also demonstrates the project’s commitment and can improve investor confidence.
In Jupiter’s case, the buyback created upward price pressure on JUP. JUP soared 20% to $1.27 on the buyback news before pulling back, now trading at $1, per CoinMarketCap.
The remaining 50% of protocol fees will fund ecosystem development, ensuring continued platform improvements.
Data from DefiLlama shows that Jupiter currently ranks third-largest DeFi protocol on Solana. Its total value locked (TVL) exceeded $2.7 billion as of Jan. 17.
Jupiter Announces Major Acquisitions and Upgrades
Apart from the buyback plan, Jupiter also unveiled major updates at the Catstanbul event, including the acquisition of Moonshot and SonarWatch. The deals’ value was undisclosed at press time.
Early Saturday, Jupiter announced a majority stake acquisition in Moonshot, a memecoin trading app recently gaining traction due to the successful launch of Official Trump (TRUMP), the Solana memecoin launched by President Trump. Pump.fun’s competitor benefited from the launch as it was featured on the project’s official website as the recommended platform to buy the tokens.
“The team is amongst the smartest, most driven group of people I have ever met & it has been incredibly fun jamming on the future of memes together,” Meow commented on the acquisition.
On the same day, Jupiter also announced the acquisition of SonarWatch, a multichain dashboard and portfolio tracking tool for the DeFi ecosystem.
As part of the deal, SonarWatch’s personal portfolio page will be integrated into Jupiter’s platform. This way, users will be able to track their on-chain activities directly through Jupiter on both the web and mobile apps.
Moving Things Around
SONAR tokens will be discontinued and migrated to JUP tokens. This acquisition is aimed at enhancing Jupiter’s offerings and providing users with comprehensive portfolio management tools within the Solana ecosystem.
Solana DEX Jupiter also unveiled a major “v2” platform redesign with new features like Ultra Mode, Jupnet, and moves into the AI and memecoin space.
Jupiter’s Ultra Mode aims to outperform competitors by being “10x cheaper and 10x better,” offering real-time slippage estimates, dynamic priority fees, optimized transaction processing, and a new security feature called “Jupiter Shield” to protect user funds.
The team also announced Jupnet, an ambitious omnichain network designed to consolidate all of crypto into a single decentralized ledger for easy use by both users and developers. Jupnet is currently in early testing, with a public beta expected in the coming months.
The Jupnet proposal envisions a decentralized network of independent validators that would establish a unified source of truth across multiple blockchains, while also enabling cross-chain transaction execution.
On the AI front, Jupiter announced the launch of a $10 million “Magic Fund” to support open-source AI development in partnership with Eliza Labs, the team behind the AI agent project ai16z.
Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters also offered a glimpse into “v2” of the ElizaOS platform, with a Research Preview launching in March and a public release planned for April.
Another highlight of the event was the expansion of AI agent platform Virtuals Protocol into Solana following its launch on Coinbase’s Base.
