The Solana (SOL) blockchain successfully conducted one of the biggest token airdrops in history on Wednesday, with Jupiter dispensing approximately $700 million worth of its JUP token to almost a million wallets. Immediately following its launch at 10 a.m. ET (15:00 UTC), the token’s value began to climb. Initial bids came in at around $0.41, rising to $0.72, pushing the total market cap of JUP over the $6 billion mark.
Observers noted the blockchain’s resilience amidst the surge of activity around the JUP token distribution. The Solana network efficiently handled a flurry of trade on decentralized exchanges and attempts to claim the newly minted token without any major mishaps. The server operated as close to normal, a testament to the robustness of Solana’s transaction processing capability.
There were minor hiccups at the start, with some RPC nodes struggling to cope with user demands during the first 30 minutes of the airdrop. Users reportedly encountered difficulty performing any operation during the initial phase. Despite these teething issues, the overall consensus is that user experience could have been better optimized.
Within one hour of launch, over 20% of the 1 billion JUP tokens earmarked for the airdrop were claimed. Given its sheer volume, developers initially feared the potential system-disrupting ramifications of Jupiter’s airdrop. As a preventive measure, January (or “Jupuary” as referred to by its developer) was designated as a month for rigorous system testing.
Several airdrops earlier this month served as test runs for Jupiter’s on-chain liquidity pools and new “Launchpad” infrastructure for token launches. As a result, even those new to the world of crypto made substantial profits from the airdrops. The minimum payout on Wednesday was 200 JUP, valued at approximately $140.
On an interesting note, the actual winners were the validators reaping MEV priority fees. At the airdrop’s commencement, a trading bot known as roobot.sol tipped validators $50,000 to process its sizable $625,000 trade, showcasing the lucrative potential of these events.