JUP Up Over 70% as Solana Holds Steady for Jupiter Airdrop

Jupiter’s massive airdrop is underway, and so far Solana is running relatively smoothly despite the immense demand for JUP.
The long-awaited Jupiter token airdrop kicked off Wednesday morning, as the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator launched its JUP token to nearly a million eligible wallets. And despite the immediate demand, the network is holding steady.
According to data aggregation platform Birdeye, JUP opened at a price of about $0.42 and has since climbed above $0.72, marking an increase of over 70% in just over an hour. JUP currently has a market cap of around $1 billion based on the circulating supply of 1.35 billion tokens, out of a grand total of 10 billion JUP that will eventually be available.

There’s some discrepancy over the opening price, however, as CoinGecko reports a starting price of $2.00 while CoinMarketCap pegs the starting price at $2.04. Both platforms report sizable drops since then, but the initial lack of liquidity may explain the wide range. This is typical for a new token launch, especially one with considerable demand.
Given how many wallets are eligible for this initial Jupiter airdrop and the expectation of a potentially sizable airdrop, the big question was whether the Solana network would be able to handle the demand—or if it would face downtime as it has in the past.
So far, Solana appears to be stable, with no reported downtime or outages. Solana’s blockchain explorer reports a rate of more than 2,000 transactions per second being handled, though it also shows substantial ping as users bombard the network with transaction attempts.

Jupiter’s claim page notes that the “network [is] very congested” and that “transactions might not get processed.” Some users have indeed noted failed transaction attempts on social media. But broadly, Solana appears to be humming along as it works through the demand.
SOL itself is up slightly since the airdrop began to a current price of about $101 per CoinGecko, breaking back above the $100 mark after dipping below earlier Wednesday morning.

Strange Crypto Tweets From Spanish Government Account Stirs Speculation

The embassy for Spain in Bosnia apparently declared on social media that it wants tokens—all of them.

It seems everyone is thirsty for the JUP airdrop, but few appear as desperate for free tokens as the Spanish embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In a series of unexpected social media exclamations, the official Twitter account of the government of Spain in Bosnia and Herzegovina has veered from its usual diplomatic discourse, engaging actively with multiple cryptocurrency projects.

Since yesterday, the account has raised eyebrows by inquiring about participation in token airdrops linked to upcoming meme tokens like the recent WEN token launch.
In the cryptosphere, 'airdrops' are the coordinated distribution of tokens or coins, usually for free, to numerous wallet addresses—often based on specific, chain-verified criteria. Airdrops are often employed as a marketing strategy to attract new followers and enhance engagement.

But the account is not just riding the “wen token” fever. It seems to want every single token possible, and has been engaging with smaller projects such as SatoshiVM, Monad, the game Star Heroes, and Dymension
Not even Richard Heart, the controversial man behind HEX, is spared the embassy’s thirst for crypto tokens.
This erratic behavior, uncharacteristic of a government entity, has left observers puzzled.

In an emailed statement, the embassy confirmed that its Twitter account had "experienced a security breach," adding that, "The necessary measures have been taken with the social network itself to regain control over the account." The embassy added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, and the National Police Cyber Attack Group, have been informed about the incident. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in a separate email that the government is treating this issue as a confidential manner.

The initial lack of an official explanation created a vacuum filled with speculation. While verified accounts on Twitter have a special indicators—blue or gold checkmarks, and sometimes affiliate logos—to let users know they are legitimate, the verification program has changed so often that many find the checkmarks meaningless. Further, malicious takeovers of large official accounts have happened before.
The account's recent activity predominantly contains responses to blockchain projects, which themselves have been the target of spambot accounts and posts—further muddying the waters.

This incident echoes a recent security breach where the official account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was compromised. The attacker used the official Twitter account to falsely claim that all Bitcoin ETFs had been approved, leading SEC's Chair Gary Gensler to promptly disavow the tweet.

The false tweet caused significant, albeit brief, turmoil in the Bitcoin market that day, underlining the tangible impact of digital misinformation.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa. This article was updated on January 31, 2024 to add statements from the Spanish embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.