Unchained - Jupiter Founder Meow to Critics of JUP Airdrop: ‘Give Me a Break’ - Ep. 602

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

While Solana DeFi protocol Jupiter staged what was by most measures a very successful airdrop launch on Wednesday, achieving a market cap of close to $800 million, the company’s critics pointed out numerous ways the company seemed to unfairly enrich itself in the process. While Jupiter’s founder, who goes by the pseudonym Meow, acknowledges he might have done some things differently, he finds the criticisms of the launch mostly based on “bad faith” and misinformation.   Meow joined Unchained to discuss the thinking behind the launch mechanics of JUP, how the prior launch of memecoin WEN served as a dry run for JUP, whether the aggressive pricing strategy of JUP was a mistake, and what he hopes to achieve with Jupiter next, including the possibility of enabling companies of all kinds to list themselves publicly on chain.  Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: What Jupiter is and how it extends its functionality beyond mere token swapping What users are primarily utilizing the dollar-cost-average feature of Jupiter for Meow’s background in crypto and how he ended up in the Solana ecosystem Why a launchpad seemed the ideal choice for Jupiter's token launch What prompted the decision to release WEN, a memecoin, before launching JUP Meow's response to criticisms regarding the launchpad's mechanics Whether the aggressive pricing strategy for Jupiter was a misstep How Meow feels about being targeted for criticism What's on the horizon for Jupiter as a platform following the airdrop Thank you to our sponsors! Popcorn Network iTrustCapital Guest: Meow, cofounder of Jupiter Links Unchained:  Jupiter Traders Claim Whopping 545 Million JUP Tokens in First 8 Hours of Airdrop Jupiter’s Airdropped Token JUP Debuts at a $878 Million Market Cap Pro-Ethereum Crowd Slams Solana-based Jupiter Airdrop as ‘Absolute Trash’ Breakpoint 2023 Meow conference The Block: Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter confirms token release date Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have always been very clear, you know, that we're going to do token sale. Right? So I think many of these criticisms came in, I feel like, you know, you know, high cutters? You know, they fly by and they drop shit, you know? It felt that way to me. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're no high resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians.

I started grabbing crypto eight years ago, and as a senior editor of Forbes, was the first mainstream reader reporter to cover cryptocurrency full time. This is the February 2nd, 2024 episode of Unchained. With I Trust Capital, you can buy and sell crypto in a tax advantage retirement account. Enjoy significant tax advantages, 24-7 access, and the industry's lowest fees. VaultCraft is your no-code defy toolkit for customizing non-custodial automated yield products on any EVM chain. Join the referral program today and start earning rewards. Learn more at vaulcraft.io.

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face a robot, that will have to happen. So whatever you think is going to happen in the future, you can invest in it at WealthSimple. Start now at WealthSimple.com. Today's guest is Meow, founder of Jupiter, a Dex Aggregation Protocol on Solana. Welcome, Meow. Hello. Hello, Laura. Nazimichu. Congrats on your successful Airdrop this week. It didn't seem to break anything.

And right out of the gate, it gave your Dex Aggregation Protocol, Jupiter, an $800 million market cap. So explain to us what it is that Jupiter is and how it works. Okay, so Jupiter started as a tax aggregation, right? But actually we are, we're actually a really broad platform now. Okay, we have, we have aggression, we have limit orders, we have DCA, we have PURPS, and recently, we are launched PAN, right? So I think we are also the most used service on Solana. We do about, and we refer about 80% of organic volume of sauna, right?

And recently, we actually also crossed, we also recently crossed Pancake and Uniswop in terms of money active users, right, wallets. So I would say that we are probably, if not the most used trading platform in Defyde today as well. Yeah. And then our PURPS platform also did $1.4 billion in volume last week. Yeah. So I think we started out of being a dash aggregator. And don't get me wrong, we spent a lot of time, making sure that we do the absolute best possible routing.

Right. You know, and in Suana. Right. But we also spent, I think we have also grown quite a bit, you know, into different products. including Perps and our new launch pad. Yeah, so I think that's a word ring. When I started and I said you're a Dex aggregation protocol, so what would you describe Jupiter as?

Oh, good question. I mean, I'll just say that we're building the, right now, I say that we are building the best exchange in Defi, you know, right? Basically, I think we have pretty much everything you need in one platform, right? We have a swap, which is aggregation. And for aggregation, because we aggregate, right? We promise you your best price, best use. experience and best token selection, right?

It means that whatever token you want, whatever token you want is there, right? And the best device and the best price, right? And then we have limit orders, the limit orders, and you limit orders, and you can actually place limit orders. You don't need markets for limit orders, right? And then your DCA.

So this is actually great, because DCA is by far the fan favorite, right? Right, dollar cost averaging just for non-traders who are listening to this show. So the very cool thing is that people use us for, like DCA for a lot of different things, right? For example, they buy low liquidity coins, right, or every hour, right? You know, so actually, originally when we did it, we're like, okay, people can use DCA to like DCA sold over one month or something, right?

Every day for a month. No, no, no, people don't do that. Right. What people do instead, right, is that they buy very low liquidity coins and then they buy like incrementally over a few minutes or like every five minutes, right? You know, so that's what you do, you know? Right. People love it, right? Because it's a feature that I think doesn't exist anywhere else, right? or it's not done well anywhere else, you know, on Jupiter.

And that's just to like reduce price slippage? Yes, precisely. Because you have a lot of things that, because for a lot of these low liquidity coins, if you buy like, by 5K, right, it's actually, you will go like, you will hit like 3% already, you know, right? And not just like you also suckers because you imbalance the pool and then someone someone up you, right? You know, things like that.

Or someone front run you, you know, many of that. Right. So yeah, so you just do this year, right? You know, yeah. So yeah, it's really cool, I think, you know, yeah. And of course, there are pubs as well, virtual. And our perps are probably, I think, definitely top field in industry. And then if you do not consider the D-YDX and all the other L-1s, right,

you know, we are probably the top, you know, around there. So, yeah, so I think we are supposed to do pretty well as well. Yeah. And so how did you, like, I mean, you're, you know, doing all this in Solana, but as far as I understand, you've been around in crypto for a little while. So tell us how you got into crypto and came to launch Jupiter. Long story short is that my critical journey began. I met a friend in San Francisco who just mysteriously became,

he was just the smartest guy of Bobbycoin. I ever knew, right? He taught me everything I knew. It's funny because I met him a party, right, a Dogecoin party, right, in San Francisco. And what year was this? 17, no, 16, can't remember around there, right? It's a long ago. But anyway, long story.

ask him, he asked me what they don't know of Bitcoin. I said nothing, right? And I asked him, what did he know of Bitcoin? He said nothing. So turns out that one of us are lying, you know, right? So anyway, he knew everything. He taught me everything I knew, right? It was a, it was a chance and counter, but he told me everything you knew, right? And after that, I think I went to really advise and help out in a bunch of like projects, including portfolio, you know, which obviously got bought by FTX. So I was an advisor there. And then, and then after I went to, I went to advise a project at InstaDat. Instead that, which is the Khyber,

Kyber, incident, and bunch of others. And we also started WBTC, right, which is the most used of WBTC. So WGC was started as a collaboration between, like, so we did that big goal, right? So together with Big Go and Wren, we started WTC, which is obviously the most used token today, right? Yeah.

After that, at some point, I think I wanted a, because there was all EF, right? So before this is all EF, right? So I think at some point, I think I wanted a new, like, environment, you know, and then I came to Swana, you know. And then we started a earlier project that then from there we became, it was called Mercura. And the material became, right now, it became Metara. And then as part of the project, we started Jupiter. So that's how we end up with two main projects under our studio right now. And so this week, obviously, was the big event

with the AirDrop. But I know that you guys kind of did like a sort of test run. you had like the when token air drop. So what was the purpose of that? Like what did you learn from doing the when token air drop that help you prepare for this one? At breakpoint last year, right? I told everybody I wanted to be a launch pad, right? Because I felt that launching new tokens is such an important part of the process. It's really important.

It's really, really important. But I also felt like it was really, I didn't like the current models. You know, everything felt wrong to me, right? from token gate the launch pads to the other ideal models, I just didn't like how to work. And then in addition, one of the things that is very important in today's like Cryptocene is ad drops, right? It's very important, right? Because that is like the main event, right? And there hasn't really been a launch pad that integrated the idea of adrops into the launch pad, right? You know, and in some sense, it's very tricky because launch pads usually have people, so we wanted to build a system.

that. I think anyway, and we had that problem too, right? So in essence, what we ended up doing was that we didn't end up trying to launch Jup. Right?

We ended up trying to build a launch pan. Because think about it, right? If I launch a Jube token without using my launch pan, right? Will I have any credibility to ask any other project to use Jupyter as launch pan?

No possible, right? It's just not possible, you know? So I had to, so I had to launch Jube using my own launch pan. right doesn't make sense and then but but then so anyway i was just musing right so i just talking the community about it or we're just on discord right because i spent a lot of time of discord right so i was just like talking to discord and everything and stuff and someone just said hey why don't you just launch a meme coin right

you know for as a dry run for jup right because there's a lot of unknowns right and i was like okay that's a really fucking stupid idea you know right but then obviously me being me if it's a stupid I did you got to test it, right? So I went on Twitter and be like, hey, someone suggested that we launched a test coin to test the launch pad, to test the launch, just like how,

you know how Elon tests, launch test rockets, you know, right? So if Elon can test launch rockets, right, why can't we, you know,

test a token launch? You know, right? Think about it, you know? So long story shots is that, you know, we say, okay,

we're going to, we're going to launch a token before the, before Jube. It's much lower, it's much more lower stakes. You know, it much lower stakes,

because the token is like obviously much less value, right? But what we can also do is that we can also technically stress test it, right? It means that we can actually, so for juke, the number of juke number of recipients is at 955K, 935K. So for the WAN token, we add up to more than a million, right? 1.1 million or something, right? So in many ways it was like just as technically stressful. It required us to really scale RPCs, really scale RPCs, really scale RPCs, which, your infra and really get the UI right and everything, but in a much lower state context.

Yeah. So that was the, that was the point of it, you know. Obviously, obviously it was something fun as well, right? Because so as of now, after testing our launch system with both when and Juke, I feel confident now, you know, to tell people to come use us, you know, as a launch as a as launch pad. You know, so that was a big part of it. Yeah. Does it make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So in a moment, We'll talk more about how the launch went, but first a quick word for the sponsors who make the show possible. Did you know you can buy and sell crypto with tax benefits in an individual retirement account? ITrust Capital makes this possible. But what does this mean?

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Back to my conversation with Meow. So as, you know, the day of your air drop, the crypto community did seem impressed that, you know, nothing broke. But as I'm sure you saw, then there was a lot of criticism afterward about how people seem to think that the airdrop was beneficial to the Jupiter team. So some examples are people are pointing out that the Jupiter team sold about maybe 20% of the circulating supply from day one at what they consider a high valuation.

And the way that this worked, they're saying that the Jubert team provided liquidity in a liquidity pool on the dynamic liquidity market maker. meteor, but pretty much for at least that first hour, the liquidity pull was basically just Jupiter selling to buyers and that, you know, the price that you guys had set was that it would reach about 70 cents as the number of tokens sold reached 250 million. And, you know, they were pointing out that you guys made this money without any investing. So what do you say to these criticisms? Oh, I say they're right.

I mean, that's how it works. But as usually the devils the details details. right, the important thing to understand out of this pool, right, it's not a fundraising pool, first and foremost. Okay, it's not a fundraising pool first and foremost. Okay. It's first and foremost a liquidity bootstrap and backstop pool. Okay.

Let me explain to you. Okay. I mean, I think they're saying the net effect is that it's as if you raise $250 million. No, it's actually not $250. But first net effect, right? The first net effect, by the way, first of all, I don't actually, I think we should raise. I don't actually feel bad about raising at all.

You know, we didn't do any OTC, we didn't do any VC rounds for Jupiter, right? And we wanted, and the reason we didn't do any of that is that we wanted our first sale, right, to be with the community, right? You know, that's it. We wanted it to be open market sale. All right.

So a total of, like, so think about it, right, your favorite, whoever criticized me, asked their favorite D5 protocol, probably sold like 20% of tokens or something, right, to a VC, right, who vetted over time, right? We didn't do any of that, or OTC, We didn't do any of that stuff, right? Instead, what we did is very simple.

We talked 2.5% of the of total supply, with no further people invest in Jupiter, none, right? 2.5% open market, right? You're talking about not the ones released in the Airdrop, but the full 10 billion that will eventually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 2.5% of the, so 10% was in it. So 10% was released in the Adron, right?

And 2.5% was for, for, By the way, I think just as a context, right, we announced that we're going to do a 20% token sale last year, at breakpoint, 20%. Okay? And based on community feedback, we got down to 10%. Right? And then based on community feedback again, we're going to have 5%.

Right. And then after that, after it realized, oh, shit, the price is going to be really high, right? We got down to 2.5%. Right? So actually we have been like very clear about our intentions to do a token sale from day one. right if you have been if you have been following any of jupiter stuff including the breakpoint we've always been very very very clear that there's a token sale coming we just won't show how to do it okay that's this is okay so initially we're calling it a token sale full stop done no anyone who is

anyone who is interested check out my uh jupiter brick point presentation right you know it was i i presented it in brickpoint in front of thousands of people and also in front of everybody and i i've been talking about it for months and months and months on Discord and on on every anywhere. Okay. I even went on, I even went on two live streams before the, before the talk. Okay. And even for when, even for when, right, I tweeted a handover ceremony, right, whereby the tokens were taken out and given the team, right?

The obvious, the team that's running when, right? First of all. Okay. So I think if you have been following Jupiter in any way, you will know that number one, we have always been very clear. You know that we're going to do a token sale. Right. So I think many of these criticisms came in, I feel like, you know, you know, high quarters, you know, they fly by and they drop shit, you know, it felt that way to me, you know. So you feel, so you feel like you were messaging that it was a token sale, the way, the mechanism of this liquidity, you know, being a liquidity provider that came later after you had called it a token sale.

I feel like, first of all, I do apologize, right? I do apologize. Yeah, if there's any misunderstanding, right? I think on my end, I do feel. like I've been signaling and communicating very, very clearly all year long, that is I'm doing a token sale, right? Very clearly. I mean, you can't get more clear than going on stage in a few thousand people and saying calling a token sale. You just can't get more clear than that. Am I right?

You're not right. And thirdly, and secondly, and you must understand one thing. Laura, you must really understand this thing. There is an extremely good chance that I don't actually get any money out of this. U.S.C. out of this at all. Okay? Because first and foremost, this is a best. backstop pool. Now, what does that mean? It means that anyone, whether you're an ad-drop recipient,

okay, or someone with via remorse, right, you can just down to this pool for seven days, seven days, okay? And you know what happened earlier in the day, right? People are farthing it so hard that it really just started retreating, right? It's really started draining up, right, all the way to like 54, 53 or something, you know, right, until it started reversing back, right? So that's a very good chance, right? That it just gets done nothing, you know? So the whole idea that, So first and foremost, right? So you must understand why we do not see that as a token sale. Pool, right?

Because first and foremost is a backstop pool. Okay? Now, what does that mean? It means that at any point in time, right, the jute token falls below point four. $0.40, right? We get nothing. Full stop. Right?

We get the pool. That's it. So we get tokens back. Right? And the fees from the pool. Yeah. The critics are saying that, you know, since the tokens were made out of thin air, it's like the risk is, you know,

That is actually a very, very, very, very unfast statement to make. Guys, sorry, man, that's a really, really, really unfast statement to make. We worked extremely hard, okay, to create an asset that people wanted to buy. Okay, right? That a lot of people felt symbolizes defy2.0. Okay? You know, and we were extremely careful, okay, about every single token that got released. Okay?

Check out jube. Dube Research, J-U-P-R-E-A-R-C-H. Okay, check it out, right? For, really check it out. We documented the whole, because we treat Juke as a very valuable resource. Okay. So we documented every single style of the token minting, accountability. For example, all our co-wallets, we can't actually sign or release it.

Why? Because we actually got professional custodians and three ecosystem people, right? Well-known people, right? Such that, like, if you want to unlock the co-waters, we can't. what other stuff, they have to sign it, you know? Right. And then we are very, very close to finding the professional custodian, right, for that. So I think we build the community up, the user-based up, the product up, right? For this to be a very valuable token, okay? First and foremost, okay, it's not out of thin air, okay? That's very important, okay? If it's out of thin air, why don't

they do it? Think about it, right? If it's out of thin air, why don't they do it? No, no, seriously, Laura, work with me, okay? If it is really out of thin air, right? Why don't they do it, right? And make it and set it at this price and let people buy it. No, it's not out of thinnet at all, right? It's not. It's the manifestation of the years and years of commitment, effort, commitment to the ecosystem, right? You know, and community building, ecosystem building, okay?

And it resulted in the token that people wanted to buy. Okay? As a result, I took a value, right? And we were very careful of protecting it value. Okay? We locked everything up properly, had everything in wallet that the community can track, right? And we took a small piece of that out into out of a sale, right?

And, guy, And remember, there's no more vastic, right? There's 5% for Mercura and 20% for a team, right? But there's no other, there's nothing else. Okay, so we're very rare care of how to use it. Okay, that's it. That's all I'll say, you know? Okay.

And then, so there was another criticism about, you know, as we mentioned, you were using Meteora, which was this dynamic liquidity market maker for the liquidity pool. And I guess on there, the swap fee that liquidity providers earn consists of both a base, fee and a variable fee. And the variable fee is based on real-time volatility. And they're saying that this dynamic where the sales were mostly just all happening in one direction created a lot more volatility, which then jacked up that fee that you would earn. So what do you say to that criticism? I'll say that correct. I'll say that correct. It's actually one big, again, this system is very new, right? So I think one thing I'll say, this system is very new. Okay? It's a very new system.

We are experimenting everything. Okay. Like, guys, this is our second launch. Okay. It was our first launch literally happened last less than a week ago, by the way. Guys, just for some context, okay? The when launch happened four days before the juke launch, four days, okay? Right. So yes, we do things on the fly, for sure. Okay, we learn a lot. Okay.

The when, for the when, the fees were high, but the pool was relatively small, like three million, right? So it went, and it's just true to really fast, right? You know, so we didn't really pay attention. We didn't really think about that much, right? For the juke one, it went really slowly and we were to see that. No, no, so they're right. So, so, so they're right.

right, right? If I would do it again, I'll do it, I'll say much lower, for sure, right? Because it actually, it wasn't just a problem. It wasn't just a problem with the fees. The problem was actually that it really kind of hurt prices, hurt the poor as well, price is covering wise. So for sure, you know, yeah. Anyway, guys, I think if anyone is trying to, but if you are asking that question out of good intention, right, they're saying, oh, you can probably improve the system by doing the fees. I 100% agree, no problem, right? But if you are, in senior, we think you're doing it for the money, then I think our track record speaks for itself. You know, we spend a very, very long time, you know, I personally deal out of projects for no money, right?

And then we spent a lot of time in Solana and it's actually making no money at all, right? You know, I just just working my ass off, right? Yeah, so I feel like, I feel like we are very clean here, you know, in terms of how we think about it, you know? So I think, so in summary, 100%. For future launchers, the pool fee will be much lower, right? And then for this one, the pool is set ready. You know, and we just learn from it. You know, I honestly, it really hurt us.

I'll tell the truth. This pool feeding hurt us today. Heard us yesterday. You know, because it really hurt, it really hurt the pool from breaking out. You know, it's okay, we learn, you know? As I said, okay, so Laura, Laura, one last thing. It's like, I always tell people that, so if you look at my tweets, right, now, this is very important, okay? This is very important.

I've always said that we're experimenting and we will mess up, okay? And all mess out. And we mess up, it's my fault. Okay? Done. So I own it. I own that the fees are too high. I own that the number of the systems that people wanted to use to buy the token,

that DCLLLLRDN all didn't work that well. I also own that. I also own that some of the comms were not done as well. Because for example earlier, right, it's like to me it was so clear what it was, right, that when I communicated it, I communicated, okay, it's a DLMMM backstop. It's a team-owned DLMMBestock liquidity pool. So I, and then I also, so it was hard for me to register that people might not understand that. So I apologize for that, you know, right?

But anyway, I think, you know, I'll tell you, like, I mess up a lot, you know, and I learn, you know, that's how it works, you know? Yeah, but now I think, but the good thing is this. After we do, true, right, the good thing is this is everyone now, every project that uses LFG now, right? They have a problem. The whole world will understand how it works, right? And then everything is great, yeah. All right. And so one other question is, like, I guess the plan initially was the first,

in the liquidity pool for the price to go up to 70 cents as the number of tokens sold was about 500 million. But then shortly before the airdrop, I guess that got changed. So it was 250. No, no, no. But I saw a screenshot of before the plan was, it would be 500 million sold for it to reach that price. But then it got changed to 250 million sold for it to reach that price.

So basically, you know, you guys were selling at this higher price faster. So why did you make it? that change? I mean, we keep changing things, right? I mean, like, in fact, if you look at our website, there's this entire tool, there's this entire model. It's actually on the website, actually, it's actually under LFG.org, du dot AG, sys design. Okay. And you can find that. So it's a tool that our intern built. It's an amazing intern, by the way. He built a tool to allow anybody to input a few parameters and output the graph and output the price rates and everything, right? So what we were doing is that we were actually very, very actively trying to figure out what the good system was, you know,

and we actually made a decision a day before, you know. Again, we do things on the week. We are quite experimental, okay? We finished the when, we finished the went thing last week, last week, and then we started, we started, and then we had to, we did, we did handover on Monday, I think, and then we did juke on Wednesday, you know, right? So, yeah, it was actually pretty tight. And we, what happened was that, you know, we just looked at numbers and we're like, okay, you know what, is this too much? Do you want to do this thing? Right? And then we said, hey, it feels better to do this way. You know, so we cut it down, you know? And then we correspondently, and then we published the economics to reflect everything as well.

You know, yeah. So basically it was a matter of like, you know, us like, looking through numbers and thinking of it, you know, I would say if I would do it again, I would say that I was a bit too aggressive on the pricing, the low to high price. And the reason, okay, here you say it's a funny thing. here's a funny thing. Do you know, basically what happened, right, is that in earlier launchers, I think we were very heavily criticized. Okay, the one thing to understand about this whole,

the whole LFG, for the listeners who are not too familiar with LFG, right? The core concept here is open market, open market, right? That means that whether you're adrop or you're bought or you are, the DLAM pool, it opens at the same time, right? So it's a very dynamic, like, open market system. Okay? And the reason is because I think there's nothing, I think unlike other,

it's on chain, right? So anything can happen. There's multiple pools happening everywhere, right? So, and the reason, and it's actually really important to understand that, because we actually feel like that's actually the only way to do like proper, like, you know, price is covered, right? You know, everything.

Because there'll be a lot of people dumping too, you know, right? Okay, but back to the point. So actually, but in earlier launches, we were heavily criticised, right? The community was killing us, right? Because some of the early borders, they got in at a very low price. right and they made like millions right and then the community was very very happy over it okay so if you

ask me thinking looking back what happened was that we over we over protected for that scenario you know right but setting initial price a bit too high right so so basically what happened was that what happened ended up it's like the max price settled up uh ended up being like you know the the net the price you know and then the initial price started being a bit high as well it's actually because you wanted to protect against like no borders being too aggressive early on you know, but I guess we got a bit carried by that, right? I think if I do it again, I'll probably lower both, right? I'll lower 0.4 to, like, 0.25 and low 0.7 to that 0.6,55 or something.

You know, I think that'll be a good range, you know, high inside, you know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And last criticism, again, we just need to go through these to address some of the stuff I've seen online. But critics are also pointing out that Jupiter paid itself 100 million tokens for use of its own launch pad. Oh, that's great. Yeah, for sure. No, that's great because that we're eating on Doofood, right? again, we don't get the tokens, the Dowdust, we get 25% of that. No, it, Laura, Laura, dot food, dog food is very important, okay? Like, dog fooding, okay? Like, you know, it's a commitment, okay?

If I'm going to ask other projects to pay 1%, right? I'll pay 1%, I'll pay 1%. Right? Again, I don't, I don't actually, I get, the team gets 25% of it, right? The most of it goes to a jupe down. Okay? So the juke down from day one gets 0.75% of when

and 0.75% of juke. That's nice, right? You know, it's a really good incentive for the end to start. Again, we don't get most of it. You know? Right? And we won't sell our jupe anyway.

You know, like we just won't sell it. You know? So, you know, it's cool. You know? I think it's great. I think to anyone who's criticized that, I'm like, no, I've been signaling that forever. Okay?

I've been very, I tweeted about it like five times. Okay? So if you're going to criticize us, without understanding that most of it goes to the Tao, firstly. Okay? And secondly, we're not footing. And thirdly, I've been talking about it for a long time already. Come on, guys, give me a break.

You know, start reading, you know? Yeah. Okay. So obviously now you, you know, overcame this major hurdle. Obviously, this launch was, you know, I'm sure a big deal. So what are the next plans for Jupiter? I think the next plan for us is really to start to stabilize. I think right now, honestly right now, I think everyone's really, really tired.

I think I feel like, okay, anyway, I apologize for being so annoyed. But I feel like, I feel like I work up today to a lot of accusations that were based on bad faith, lack of reading and no questioning, right? You know, there was no attempts to ask me what happened. There was no attempts to clarify, read through the previous things are written. No attempts to, you know, actually read through.

I mean, you are a researcher, right? You know, right? I mean, you know. Right? Before you throw out accusations for people, you will read, right? You know? You would. I know you would, right?

So I feel like we spend, a lot of time trying to figure out a launch system that is actually very community-friendly. Again, we don't take out anything until the ad-drop dumpers and bio remorse and everyone has like in. And also the other way, there are things that this system also allows buyers that are confidence, right? Because having this pool here, remember, Laura, remember, we are actually ad-dropping a lot of value, okay?

At current numbers, it's like 600 plus million value. And that means you need a lot of buy demand. Right. So buyers need to have a lot of confidence. Okay. And then what happens is that like, what happens if someone starts, so if the price starts fluctuating like crazy, right, the buyers have no comment to the buy, you know?

But what this, what this pool actually does is that it absorbs a lot of the cell demand, right, you know, from people dumping, right? And that's actually the reason why, despite it being such a major ad drop, you see the price, you see the price increasing slowly, dropping a bit and being like remarkably consistent. You know, it's because you have this pool there, right, to really buffer a lot of the, a lot of the buy and solid demand, right? And honestly, I think it worked as planned, you know, it really worked as planned, right?

So I'm really happy about that. But I feel like instead of trying to understand the mechanics, I feel like people were not interested in understand mechanics, but they were really interested in like slender, you know, and that made me very, very upset, you know, because we really, really spent a lot of time thinking about how to build a better launch pad, you know? I think we're not perfect, but I think we made progress into doing so. So anyway, I apologize if I came across as being very annoyed, you know, but it has been an extremely stressful few months.

And then to finish off that with like a lot of fat and just unfounded for, I don't no, I'm wrong. Certain things I did wrongly, okay? I think I was very technical in how I described the pool firstly. Okay? I apologize for that. Okay? And I assume a lot of context because I've been saying things in my Discord.

and live stream for a long time. So I'll purchase for that. Secondly, secondly is that I understand why people might be confused because it's never seen before, right? You have never,

we have, in crypto, we have never experimented before with this model before, right? Of open model, launch model, that no one,

no one had done it before, right? And thirdly, the price curve itself, I'll tell you, I'm actually very comfortable with the things. Let me see why. If I have successfully delivered a token, right?

That's worth this amount, right? And it has stayed, and it has been in the market and we've with with stood all the selling pressures right you know for seven days I feel very happy I feel very happy I earned it right and if things go wrong they it gets below some point then I don't get anything right and I and and I feel extremely comfortable with that you know in this in that sense no so I feel like um so I think uh yeah so I think for anyone that wants to so I'll say one another thing with launch pad before I move one

we are trying to create a new model. Okay? Once that does actually reward the team, you know, but also make sure the team actually stays responsible, not just for the initial pump, right? You know, but for a sustained amount of time, that's firstly, okay? We do actually want,

so if you're a team that's looking to launch a token, right, you know, we want to help you raise, get the money, okay, Ken? I want to help you do it in a way that is like good for you because you get a community, you get everything, everything and you do not leave your community hanging, okay, in case things don't go well, firstly, right? Yeah, and that's the, and anyone who is interested in improving this model,

right, I'm on Twitter, where I'm out, right? I'm always available on Twitter. You see me on Twitter. I'm always available, right? If you're asking questions, right, you know, I'm always to answer, hold something on my forum, right? I'll answer you, I'll promise you, okay? But don't come with bad faith, okay? We really worked extremely hard. Last two years, okay? Right? And to do this at a time whereby we are the most vulnerable, right? You know, I don't think it's good faith. Like, seriously, people are just like copy and pasting random shit, you know, and I don't like that. Yeah.

And I think we're going to release a white paper before the air drop, but that didn't happen. When people expect that? You know, I don't know, maybe the, maybe, I think February, I think I wanted to, I wanted to do white paper, but I think I got very caught up actually building a launch pad. So our whole team was trying to build the launch pad and we didn't do it. Anyway, to answer a question earlier and stuff, I think what is coming up with this? I think we are looking for really good projects, right? You know, because we have a really good community and distribution.

Right, I think we, the launch is not perfect yet, but we are getting better. Even the Jupyter launch, we learn a lot of things, right? We can do it to help other projects, you know? Right, that's first thing. So we are looking for like great projects to launch on the launch pan because we think that's great. Because that brings so much more excitement to the community. I love it, right? And then the second thing that we look is to do is to obviously improve our products, right?

I feel extremely happy with our set of products right now. Sort aggression, the LO, DCA, Perps, right? And launch pad, right? And also gateway, right? So the next step is really to improve those, right? So I think we have about, it's just about improving those things over the next nine months, right? We don't need that many new products, but it's just really about making it much better, right? And thirdly is that, thirdly is that we also want to invest in infra, you know, as well.

You know, because we are getting to the point whereby, like, okay, we're doing to run a lot of our infra, you know? whether it's like whether it's around interchained infra or whether it's around like the vegetative infra you know so we do you get to that point right and part of the reason why we want to make sure that we had capital moving to this new phase we actually we are actually going to start into moving a more into more like capital intense phase you know right so that that's all going to do as well you know yeah so yeah so those are plans so basically a lot more new projects a lot more high quality projects for launch pan firstly um secondly is that uh to really improve our systems, products. Thirdly is to like really have a much longer term plan for infra needs and

also start contributing to the Swana like Valiator, the core, the Veticor. And lastly, is that I think there are a number of things I really want to drive, right? You know, for example, I, it's a crazy idea, but I don't see any reason why companies, like not, not crypto companies, the actual companies, right, cannot list on chain, right? Why must they go to the next stack? One must I go to Singapore's like, you. You might go to integer. why can't they lease on chain, right? You know, they can get much better community, much, much better funding, much better everything, you know? So I don't see why not, right?

Obviously, it's a longer term plan, right? Are you talking about like stocks or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like listing, right? Like listing. Like, say, for example, imagine you are, imagine you are a internet company, right? That's doing well, right? How do they make it possible, right, for you to list on chain, you know, versus going to, you know, like Frankfurt stock exchange or something? you know, right?

How do it make it more compiling of it for you to do this on chain? And secondly, obviously, on the flip side, right? How do the on-chain participants, right? Know that you as a company has the right auditing, has the right? It's certified and all the kind of stuff, right? So that's actually, but I think if you can bridge a gap, it'd be great, you know, because we will have like, you know, we're on the next frontiers of like, you know, like really merging the off-chain world and on-chain world, right?

You know, like in the stock markets, you know? So that, and then the other thing that we don't want to do is to really, bring as many markets to swanah as possible. Because, for example, for example, for example, forx markets, RWA, all these markets. It's not about assets, by the way. People talk about assets,

but assets is not important. What's important is the markets. Right? Because when you have the, because you can have an asset, but there's no market, there's pointless, right? So what you need is markets, right?

And then what Jupiter does is that Jupiter does a really good job, right? Of, like, just bring all those markets together and allowing you to transact across that one transaction. Right? So basically what we want to do is that I want to personally, like, really drive to, like help help a lot of the companies, like bring more assets, right, like Forex and everything,

right, into the, into, into, into, into network, right? And working in Cumberland and other guys, right? Because if that happens, then you can literally go from like a private market asset to like a meme coin, right? You know, or to, and you can do those users to pay for, pay for your PayPal, you know, something, you know, right? So I think the goal is to bring as many the market as possible into one network, which is Sona, right? Because when they're all in Sona, you can execute across all of them in an extremely cheap and fast manner. You know, and Jupiter can be helping with that. So those are like the three.

So yeah, so a lot of things you're working on. Yeah, yeah, it sounds very ambitious. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on Unchained. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap. Today presented by Unchained contributor, Megyn Christensen. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break.

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In a major turn of events, FTX, the giant cryptocurrency exchange that filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, informed a bankruptcy judge that it will not be reviving operations. This frees FTCX to commit to fully repaying its customers. The failure to restart the exchange underscores how weak its infrastructure was that it could not find a partner willing to put in the money and effort to build upon the remains of what was once a third largest crypto exchange by volume. This move is expected to bring some relief to the numerous customers affected by FTX's collapse, but pegging the value of customer accounts to the date FTX filed for relief left customers complaining that a collapsing FTX drove prices down for nine days before it saw protection. Also this week, the FTX estate

told Bloomberg that had doubled the entity's cash reserves to $4.4 billion from the $2.3 billion in October. Meanwhile, a judge authorized the sale of FTX's Bahamas properties, including Sam Bankman-Fried's $40 million penhouse as part of the exchange's bankruptcy proceedings. Lastly, in related news, Effective Ventures Foundation agreed to return about $26.8 million in donations received from FTX. Stelthes Network, the cryptocurrency lending platform co-founded by Alex Moschinsky that was under Chapter 11 protection, has commenced the distribution of over $3 billion in assets to its creditors as part of its reorganization. This crucial step, confirmed by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York,

coincides with the emergence of Celsius from bankruptcy. In addition to the distribution, Celsius creditors are now the owners of a new Bitcoin mining company, Ionic Digital Inc, created by Celsius with mining operations managed by Hutt 8. Tether Holdings Limited, the entity behind the popular stable coin tether reported an unprecedented financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2023. The firm's net profits soared to $2.85 billion, a notable milestone in its operational history. This achievement was largely driven by substantial earnings from U.S. Treasury securities, contributing approximately $1 billion to the net operating profits. The remainder of the profits primarily stem from the appreciation of the company's Bitcoin and gold reserves.

The quarter also witnessed remarkable growth in Tether's excess reserves, which climbed by $2.2 billion, reaching a total of over $5.4 billion. These excess reserves are crucial in covering the firm's outstanding unsecured loans, which stood at $4.8 billion at the year's end, thereby addressing past community concerns about potential risks associated with this aspect of Tether's portfolio. For the entire year of 2023, Tether declared a net profit of $6.2 billion. This financial strength was attributed to various sources, including $4 billion from U.S. Treasury bonds and other non-crypto investments. The firm's total assets under management included significant holdings in U.S. treasuries, Bitcoin, gold, and venture capital investments.

Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis reached a settlement agreement with the SEC regarding a civil lawsuit, Bloomberg reported Thursday afternoon. This lawsuit accused Genesis of violating securities regulations through its Gemini Earn program. Genesis, a subsidiary of digital currency group has agreed to pay a $21 million civil penalty to resolve these allegations. However, the payment of this penalty is contingent on the company's ability to fully repay its customers and other creditors in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The settlement, pending approval by a bankruptcy judge, addresses claims that Genesis illegally raised funds from investors via the Gemini Earned program.

This program, operated in collaboration with Gemini Trustco, offered interest payments to customers for loaning their digital assets. The SEC had argued that this constituted an offering of unregistered securities. Both Genesis and Gemini have denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the earned program was not a security. The program has been terminated since then. German police executed one of their largest cryptocurrency seizures, confiscating over 2.1 billion euros worth of Bitcoin. This operation focused on dismantling an illegal, covert streaming service. The seizure at the scale was a major blow to digital piracy networks leveraging cryptocurrencies. Concurrently, in the UK, the police made a significant seizure of nearly 1.8 billion pounds in Bitcoin,

linked to an investment fraud scheme originating in China. This operation was part of a broader investigation that stretched across international borders, highlighting the increased global efforts to track and seize digital assets connected to criminal activities. Finance, the largest cryptocurrency changed in the world by volume, now permits larger traders to store assets with two external banks, possibly due to concerns arising from its recent $4.3 billion U.S. regulatory fine. This operational change comes as high-volume traders increasingly seek platforms with robust security and stability in a dynamic regulatory environment.

Finance has entered into partnerships with Cignam Bank and Flow Bank to custody these assets. These collaborations are geared towards enhancing the access and management of cryptocurrencies for users. Signam Bank specializes in digital asset banking while Flow Bank operates as an online bank in Switzerland. On Wednesday, Ripple suffered a significant security breach, with co-founder Chris Larson confirming that his personal accounts were exploited. The hackers stole approximately $113 million. Larson's acknowledgement of the unauthorized transfers has brought attention to the security vulnerabilities, even high-profile individuals in the crypto industries can face. cadabra.money, a decentralized platform, suffered an exploit. This security breach led to the destabilization

of magic internet money, causing it to lose its peg to the U.S. dollar. The exploit was executed through a series of complex transactions that manipulated the price of the collateral in the Ethereum cauldrons, ultimately leading to the unauthorized withdrawal of funds. The immediate impact of this incident was a noticeable depegging of the MIM token from its intended one-to-one parity with the U.S. went as low as 0.76 before it rebounded to 0.98. Polygon Labs, the development team behind the Polygon blockchain announced a reduction of its workforce by 19% following a period of rapid expansion during the last cryptocurrency bull run. The layoffs come as the company adjusts to the current market climate and refocuses its strategy for sustainable growth. This decision reflects

a broader trend in the tech and crypto industries where companies are reassessing their growth strategies and workforce needs in response to the changing market conditions. For instance, this week, FinTech Giant PayPal fired nearly 2,500 employees. For the remaining employees of Polygon Labs, there was good news, however. Polygon concurrently announced that it was giving employees company-wide a 15% raise and eliminating geographic differences in pay. And that's all. Thanks so much for joining us today. If you enjoyed this recap, go to Unchained Crypto.substack.com.

That is unchained crypto.substack.com and sign up for our free newsletter so that you can say up to date with the latest in crypto. Unchained is produced by Laura Shin with help from Nelson Wang, Matt Pilchard, Juan Aronovich, Megan Gabbas, Shoshank, and Margaret Korea. The weekly recap was written by Juan Aronovich and edited by Gene Hee Kim. Thanks for listening. Network. For the latest in digital assets, check out markets daily five days a week with host Noel Atchison. Follow the Coin Desk podcast network for some of the best shows in crypto.