A defunct Ethereum-based protocol that has been inactive for seven years experienced a surge in price due to its similar ticker symbol to the Solana-based Jupiter’s JUP airdrop. The Ethereum-based JUP token saw a spike of over 430% before quickly dropping back down. CoinMarketCap data shows that the price went from $0.005 to $0.026 before returning to its current price of $0.007.
The Ethereum-based Jupiter protocol was launched in 2017 and was designed for creating and hosting decentralized applications (DApps). However, its official website states that the protocol is no longer active. In contrast, the Solana-based Jupiter is a decentralized exchange aggregator that allows users to swap tokens, place limit orders, and implement dollar-cost average buying strategies on the Solana network.
The surge in price for the Ethereum-based JUP token occurred just before the opening of claims for the Solana-based Jupiter’s $700 million airdrop to early users. The airdrop, which is one of the largest ever on Solana, went smoothly according to a Solana Foundation executive. In the first two and a half hours of the airdrop going live, the Solana network processed a total of 2.5 million non-vote transactions.
Austin Federa, the head of strategy at the Solana Foundation, mentioned that gas fees on the Solana network spiked during the claiming frenzy but jokingly stated that they reached an “astronomical fee” of 0.01 SOL, equivalent to roughly $1.02. This is in contrast to the high gas fees experienced on the Ethereum network during popular airdrops like the launch of ApeCoin in March 2022.
However, there were some complaints from users of third-party apps such as Phantom Wallet and Solflare during the first hour of the airdrop. Federa attributed the issue to remote procedure call (RPC) nodes, which act as the interface between user wallets and the network, and not the base layer of Solana itself. He mentioned that the base layer and RPC layer of Solana remained stable during the influx of user activity.
In the meantime, a pseudonymous seventeen-year-old crypto investor known as X, who goes by the handle notshort, claims to have made over $1 million from the Solana-based JUP airdrop. According to data from Dune Analytics, 41% of eligible wallets have claimed their JUP tokens, with a total of 566 million JUP (57% of the total airdrop allocation) being claimed since the airdrop started.
Overall, the airdrop event was successful, with the Solana network handling the high transaction volume efficiently. However, there were some technical issues with certain third-party apps, but these were unrelated to the core functionality of the Solana network.