Being poly/open has taught me one thing - that one of the most difficult things is to be very clear about what I want - but it is probably also the most important thing. Without this clarity, it is easy to get mired into endless pain and uncertainty with the very people I care the most about.
Similarly, I believe that the lack of clarity around Jupuary and the wider goals of Jupiter could lead to a lot of acrimony between the stakeholders I care the most for — namely the community, stakers, users and of course, the team.
Jupuary is a first-of-its-kind event, where voters are asked to grow the pie in a very major way. If we don’t have a really good conversation around it, we will run into big problems.
And that is the goal of this essay, to clearly explain in detail what we want Jupiter, Jupuary and JUP to achieve, and propose a clear process for how we get to understanding what everyone wants as well.
But first, a quick note about Jupiter.
Let us start with a simple statement that might have gotten obscured by all the recent debate and fud around Jupuary: Jupiter is in really good shape.
For the last three years, we’ve invested heavily in ensuring that our fundamentals are strong across all key fronts - team, capital, token, community, ideas.
On the team front, we have shown the ability to consistently deliver world class platforms – building the top aggregator in crypto, one of the largest perps DEXes ($140b in volume in less than 12 months), and a launchpad that pioneered a new liquidity model to launch major tokens. We’re also constantly experimenting with new products, such as Jup Mobile and ApePro, that after just a month in, are widely recognized as best-in-class.
Beyond the ability to ship good products, I strongly believe that we have one of the most aligned and high integrity teams in crypto. Here’s a quick story to illustrate why:
When I realized the community had concerns around our high FDV, I brought it up to the team about burning 30% of the total supply. I was deeply touched to see them unanimously agree to burning a big part of their own supply (600M tokens), while also agreeing to lock up their initial cliff and not selling most of the vested ones.
I doubt you will find many teams in crypto willing to do that - but our team agreed to that in a heartbeat - because they really wanted to assure both the community and each other that we are here for the long run.
Secondly, Jupiter has very strong fiscal foundations. We currently have about $150M of assets in our treasury (without relying on VCs or OTC desks), that comes from our initial launch pool as well as a cashflow positive business that is backed by multiple streams of revenue.
We have strongly controlled costs, meaning we are under no pressure to sell any JUP to fund operations. This strong capital base lets us think, act, and build aggressively for the future. This mindset is more akin to fast growing startups than typical crypto projects - where the focus is on building up the best foundations possible for the long journey ahead, vs capping the potential early on.
Thirdly, the $JUP token is one of the most interesting experiments in token governance. We give it actual power, not just symbolic power, over the direction of the Jupiverse. This upcoming Jupuary vote is one massive example. JUP matters.
But if we want to build long-term trust in the token, we need to earn it. That’s why we do things like the Transparency Audit and the C.A.T. Pact to earn the market’s trust over time. The whole process is really fucking organic, unlike 99.9999% of the bullshit in crypto, it really is what you see is what you get. (Degenmom can attest)
Fourthly, we have one of the most vibrant communities in crypto. We are the largest DAO in the world with more than 260k unique voters. More importantly, we are the most engaged DAO in the world, with every vote stirring community discussion and bringing our community one step closer together. We also pioneered an innovative model for distributed strategy execution in the decentralized work groups. Each workgroup works in public, for the benefit of the community and are fully accountable to the DAO. Together with the team, they play a key role in expanding and enriching the Jupiverse.
Last but crucially, our community rallies behind key ideas and ethos around how to make the crypto ecosystem, maybe even the world better – PPP (player pump player) has been adopted by dozens of communities around the world as a rallying cry for how we can improve the crypto experience. CAT (certainty, alignment, transparency) has created an industry-wide focus on building in public, rather than in private. And J4J (Jup for Jup) has become a rallying cry, bringing community members together to contribute their time and talents in return for an ownership stake in the protocol.
These 5 fundamentals - a talented and earnest team with integrity, a strong financial position, a widely held governance token, a vibrant and thriving community, and the best ideas put us in a great position to invest and build towards a world we want to see.
We are not interested in being another defi protocol, and not interested in following usual rules or playbooks about how we should evolve. We are also not interested in various theses around fat wallets, fat protocols and fat layers, or conventional wisdom around tokenomics or value.
We will of course read and learn and absorb and adapt, but at the heart of it, we want to forge our own path, figure what is right for us at the moment, and work super hard to make it happen.
We strongly believe that in the next few decades, crypto is going to underpin the world moving forward, both in terms of backend infrastructure, value creation and all user-facing financial instruments.
We want Jupiter to be in a position to be one of the key players who are going to build key infra, set the ideas and ethos for the space and drive the decentralised meta forward.
To do so we will need the best team, the best platform, the community, best ethos and best culture, best ideas – And of course, we need the best, biggest community to make these come true and come alive.
And of course, that’s where Jupuary comes in.
We look back at the first Jupuary as one of the best executed and widely distributed airdrops in crypto. Crucially, it ignited the hearts and minds of our community, and brought together a critical mass of passionate and talented people.
If done in a strategic way, Jupuary has tremendous potential to onboard the right people into the ecosystem and accelerate community growth.
Done well, Jupuary will play 3 key roles in the progress of the Jupiverse - to accelerate, to decentralise and to unify.
Traditionally, people think of community as marketing for the product. We are completely different – we believe that the product is the marketing for the community.
We have never liked the idea of giving out tokens for using products. We believe that people should use products because they are useful, not because of tokens.
The purpose of Jupuary is to invite people who are already familiar with Jupiter to become active participants in community and DAO.
We invite those who know and value Jupiter’s principles into the fold with Jupuary - massively accelerating an active tribe of people who see and understand our ethos and track record in building for the ecosystem, partners and users.
Many major protocols have emissions to mostly insiders, many times quietly and opaquely so via multiple channels. Jupuary aims to break this trend and do the exact opposite.
We choose to instead emit to the community in the most openly possible way, even though ironically it causes way more fud, so that we can expand the community and strengthen core members who embody Jupiter’s ethos.
It is usually extremely tough to get an entire community, especially one that is as big as Jupiter’s, to understand, embody and keep growing the project under a common vision.
Jupuary will serve as a crucial milestone for the community and wider ecosystem to debate, challenge and align with Jupiter’s vision — deepening their understanding of the things that matter to us.
That is why this must be a vote. Jupuary will bring massive amounts of attention to the Jupiverse. It will bring energy from across Solana (and beyond). It will help create more community members, more catdets, and more goodwill for the Jupiverse.
But only if we all agree on the best way to do it. This decision is too important to the future of Jupiter to be left in the hands of the few. Instead, we must find a way to agree as a community on how we want to grow the pie.
We have built Jupiter together. We must unify in this critical period, together.
The goal of Jupuary is simple: to kick off 2025 with a greatly expanded, united community ready to tackle the next phase of Jupiter together.
There will be a special threshold of 70% voting “Yes” for this vote. The threshold is high because we need to unify the community, and we will iterate on the proposal until we reach a result that we can agree with.
If we do not reach the threshold in the first vote, that’s fine. We will take that feedback and work with the team to come back with an updated proposal, and we will keep trying until we find the conditions that the 70% of the community is happy with.
This is meant to be a path-finding vote. It is therefore critical that you vote with your true feelings here – not choose yes just because you want to support, or choose no because of Twitter fud.
We are determined to find an outcome that the community is truly comfortable with, even if it takes a while to get there.
For the first round of voting, we’ll start with a very simple question: is the community comfortable with 2 more Jupuaries of 700M each?
This amount is based on the previously allocated amounts since the last transparency audit, which serves as a baseline for the vote.
In addition, based on feedback over the last couple of weeks, we have also settled on the high level design goals for the first Jupuary:
We will also be investing heavily in terms of sybil detection, enforcing higher minimum thresholds, requesting proof of humanness before claims and more.
In addition, we are asking for 2 Jupuaries because we believe that it is very important for both the community and the team to operate with certainty in the years ahead. See the “timeframes” section for more details!
There is an argument made by some that since they don’t know exactly what they are voting for in terms of the criteria, they are unable to vote. However I cannot allow the vote to devolve into a split-the-pie vote where people are voting for what they can get as individuals.
Jupuary is fundamentally a grow-the-pie process, and the vote has to be based on fundamental principles. Each voter is voting based on the high level direction, trust in each other, and trust in the team to build towards a collective long-term gain. The exact breakdown will be decided by the team.
If the vote passes, it means the community is comfortable with what is proposed, and for the first time crypto will have seen a community come together to decide on a major expansion event. The team will now have the ability to plan ahead and execute for the next two Jupuaries. This will greatly reduce the uncertainty faced by the community and allow Jupiter to execute on its expansion plans.
If not, we will take your feedback, iterate on the proposal, and ask for a new vote. We will come back to it again. I will spare no effort for us to get to a result that the community is happy with. It might be tiring, but I really think that it’s a force for good.
If we cannot get to a clear agreement before the end of the year, the tokens will stay in the community multisig, and we will propose something else altogether.
Remember, there is no right or wrong here, just vote on what you feel is good for the long term.
In putting up these proposals and plans - there are 3 timeframes I am thinking of - Catstanbul 2025, Checkpoint 2027, and EOTD.
Catstanbul 2025, to be held in late Jan, will be a major milestone for us where we gather the most important members of the Jupiverse together to celebrate the progress, review upcoming plans for the year and of course, to burn a cat.
I am determined that we wrap up Catstanbul with a far larger community that is unified, bullish and ready to tackle the year together regardless of the price action. This is the major reason why I decided against locking the JUP given in this Jupuary, which will reassure the market in the short term but run the key risk that we have people “forced” to stake and vote – and that’s the worst possible outcome.
Over the last 3 years, we have built up an extremely strong foundation, and I would like to request for the community’s support for 2 more years to place the perfect foundation for executing our vision for the Jupiverse.
Over the next couple of years, I will work relentlessly with the team to create the best platform, business and distribution needed to realize our vision of aggregating everything and bringing our ideas and ethos to the cultural forefront of the world.
Additionally, by then, the 2 jupuarys (if passed) would have passed, the current ASR would be long completed and the core of the community would be very well formed.
In this period, we will also work on realizing the full potential of JUP as a meme, symbol and platform currency. And of course, by then, the goal will be for JUP to be widely distributed, trusted by millions and with no more uncertainties in emissions.
It will be the perfect time for the Jupiverse to take stock of where we are, and plan for the next major phase ahead.
Last but not least, we fully stand behind this strategy. Our money is where our mouths are. The founders will not sell a single JUP before this checkpoint, ensuring that we are fully committed to whatever we request from the community.
Circling back to the question posed at the very start of the conversation - what do I want to be at the end of the day - what am I doing all this for?
It is really a fuck ton of work to do all these in public, to constantly delay my own gains and build all the key diverse pieces painfully one by one and glue it all together.
It took me a very, very long time to be clear, but I am actually quite clear now, and I want to be clear, so everyone knows exactly where I stand, and they can make up their own mind.
Simple - I want us to be in the best position to create the world we want to see together. There is so much that I am unhappy with the crypto industry as currently constructed.
We talk about crypto being better, but are we really more transparent than banks, more accountable than governments or better for society than big monopolies?
We talk about accelerating incessantly, but what are we accelerating towards? A cliff, a giant pile of shit or some poor grandmoms?
Accelerating towards a world where it does not matter what you do as long as you make money, or pvp the shit out of each other or constantly enriching insiders is not a world I would like to accelerate towards.
But if nothing else, i am also incredibly pragmatic - to be able to say anything about what is right or wrong, Jupiter has to be one of the key winners, the Jupiverse has to be a cultural force, and JUP has to become the main tokens in the cryptoverse.
For JUP to get there, we need to become a few things: become a symbol for transparency, where every single token emitted from genesis is accounted for, be backed by the most aligned community in the world, and become one of the crucial platform currencies.
Will we get there immediately? Of course not. Will the journey be simple and obvious? Of course not. Will it be a sure thing? Fuck no.
But will we try to do it together? Fuck yes. Am I fully aligned with everyone towards this goal? Hell yes. Do I want to be on a big yacht at some point with all my JUP homies? FUCK YESSSSS
But I gonna earn that right, and i will try to earn it in public with everyone, success or not.
And maybe that’s all i want in the end - the journey ;) ❤️🐈