Jupiter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator based on the Solana blockchain, reached an all-time high in the number of weekly traders last week.
For the week starting Jan. 22, Jupiter saw over 578,000 traders, the most in a single week, according to a Dune dashboard created by data scientist Andrew Hong. Of those traders, most were small retail users as roughly 58% of traders had a weekly trading volume of less than $100 and about 28% were traders with less than $1,000.
“A lot of action is coming from people farming Jupiter using the lowest amount possible for the DCA [dollar cost-averaging] feature,” wrote the founder of Web3 incubation firm DreamNFTeam, Austin Warren, to Unchained over X, formerly Twitter.
In decentralized finance (DeFi), liquidity is fractured across different DEXs where typically the price of a cryptocurrency varies on each platform, but a DEX swapping aggregator, such as Jupiter, helps crypto traders find the best price by aggregating liquidity from several DEXs.
Surpassing Uniswap
The surge in the number of traders last week preceded Jupiter temporarily becoming the biggest trading platform by 24-hour trading volume, surpassing Uniswap early Monday. Jupiter has since fallen to second place with a 24-hour trading volume of $594 million, behind Uniswap V3’s almost $698 million, data from CoinGecko shows.
On Wednesday, Jupiter will be airdropping tokens to users who transacted on the platform before Nov. 2, 2023. Even though the surge in weekly traders and trading volume on Jupiter occurred after the eligibility cutoff date, the upcoming airdrop has contributed to the excitement surrounding Jupiter.
To address those who were not eligible for the imminent airdrop, Jupiter’s pseudonymous founder who goes by the screenname “Meow,” wrote on X, “I am sorry that you could not be included in the coming round of airdrops. Executing on airdrops is extremely taxing for us given the extreme amount of effort we put into it to make it as fair, fun and inclusive as possible.”
“We as a team will do our best starting every Nov. 2 and ending in every Jupuary 31st to make sure you feel appreciated, seen and acknowledged,” added Meow, implying the potential of future airdrops. “Jupuary” is a marketing term created by the DEX trading aggregator that combines “Jupiter” and “January.”.
Jupiter’s account on X shared the same message with ineligible users, saying “We love you and we are sorry you could not be in the coming airdrop. But we will do this every Jupuary for a long time to come.”
