Jupiter price rises on heels of Moonshot majority stake acquisition

Jupiter, the leading perpetual exchange network on Solana, is seeking more growth opportunities.

In an X post, Jupiter’s (JUP) pseudonymous founder, known as “Meow,” said the decentralized exchange had acquired a majority stake in Moonshot for an undisclosed sum.

Moonshot is a company in the crypto industry that lets users buy and sell meme coins on Android and iOS. 

According to DeFi Llama, Moonshot’s popularity jumped this month following the launch of meme coins by Donald and Melania Trump. Its daily fee jumped to a record high of $6.3 million on Jan. 20, a signficant amount since it made less than $50,000 on Jan. 1. 

Jupiter’s acquisition, confirmed Sunday, may be a sign that the company hopes that the Solana (SOL) ecosystem will maintain its momentum. According to CoinGecko, all Solana meme coins have a market cap of over $20 billion. The biggest Solana meme coins are Official Trump (TRUMP), Bonk, Pudgy Penguins, and Dogwifhat. 

Jupiter has become one of the biggest players in the decentralized finance industry with a total value locked of $2.4 billion. 

It has the second-biggest market share in the booming perpetual futures industry after Hyperliquid. DeFi Llama data shows that Jupiter has handled over $208 billion in volume since its inception. Its seven-day volume soared to $15 billion, helped by the Solana ecosystem gains. 

Jupiter’s JUP token rose by 15.7% at last check Sunday after the Moonshot acquisition news. This rebound brought its market cap to $2 billion and the fully diluted valuation to $9 billion. 

It was also because of the ongoing Catstanbul event in Istanbul, Turkey, where developers showcased their applications. 

Last June, Meow proposed a significant overhaul of JUP’s tokenomics, suggesting a 30% reduction in the total supply of JUP tokens, which was initially set at 10 billion.

Jupiter has gained recognition as one of the largest liquidity aggregators on the Solana blockchain, with trading volumes rivaling those of major platforms like Uniswap.