Meow is the pseudonymous founder of Jupiter, a decentralized exchange and liquidity aggregator on Solana.

Career

In an interview with The Defiant, Meow shared how he got started in the crypto space and why he started Jupiter on the Solana blockchain instead of Ethereum: ^[1]

“I got started in crypto a few years ago, and I've done a lot of things, including various projects in Ethereum like Kyber Inam and building WBTC. I've also advised Blockfolio, one of the largest portfolio apps. I've been working in the Solana ecosystem for about 3 years now, starting with a different project before working on Jupiter.”

“The EVM ecosystem is very well-established with its own quirks, mechanisms, and the L1/L2. Also, the entire EVM community is well-researched, which is why I want to explore newer ecosystems and less proven technologies, as it appeals to me. I believe this exploration will provide me with a better understanding of the entire landscape.”

He also shared what he did before moving to crypto: ^[1]

“I was actually in the valley for a number of years. I started a few projects there and also worked for some prominent projects. I was focused on tech, product, and growth, which I believe is a relevant background for crypto.”

When asked about his thoughts on token utility being a myth and the value of JUP, Jupiter’s governance token, he responded: ^[1]

“If you talk about Ethereum projects, they have managed to hold value just fine, being governance tokens as well. That's one of the main contexts…So I think what's more important for Jupiter at this point is to grow as a project, to continue being seen as one of the best products in DeFi, and to grow the user base. That's actually way more important than emphasizing on token utility.”

“If you don't believe that statement, then your token should be zero. I mean, if the statement that a token doesn't hold any value as a representative of a project is true, then many tokens in the crypto space will be zero…Jupiter didn't start by saying, ‘Hey, you know what, we're a utility token, buy us for utility.’ We didn't say that. In many ways, we're more similar to Uniswap, or by saying, ‘Hey, you know what, we're here, we are governance, we represent this project.’ That's where value comes from initially. Now, if you look at my exact statements, what I say is this: right now, it's not a time because we are still a new project.”

He then discussed why factors like overpromising and “crypto Twitter narratives” lead to many projects failing: ^[1]

“I feel like there's such intense pressure from the community, especially Crypto Twitter, to force the narrative, including from you. You're forcing the narrative of saying, ‘Hey, tokens must have their value.’ And then what happens with this, right, many projects, in a rush to implement some kind of utility, some kind of thing to justify token value, and what it does is that it actually destroys our value...The most important thing right now is to establish Jupiter as a brand, a token, and a symbol. Following which, we grow together as a community, and then we can actually figure out the true utility together.”

“I feel like, um, if you look at what actually happens, many projects, they... Again, it's different if your utility is part of your origin story, you know. But then what many projects do is that they notice utility after that, like, you know, for it pumps for like two seconds, you know, and then like it just dumps again...I took a big risk in being so affirmative at the start about this topic. It's precisely because I feel like, okay, I don't want to lead; I don't want to overpromise. Thinking about what I'm going to do at the start, I'd rather take the heat early on and go like, ‘Hey, this I believe, and this is the growth path we need.’”

Regarding the major controversy around the JUP airdrop, Meow discussed the misunderstandings and criticisms Jupiter received on social media: ^[1]

“I would say that there are two communities here: one is the Jupiter Community, which understands the process, and the other community comprises those who haven't yet. So, it's two relatively different sets of people...One of the main mistakes I made was over-optimizing for Bot production, mainly due to the community outcry over Bots getting most of it. Another aspect we could have improved was the timing of technical decisions, as many DCA strategies didn't fire early on due to tanker issues involved.”

“The last big issue, I would say, is that I could have done a better job in explaining things in extensive detail. While I did write about how a lot of things work, I think everyone who has been following along with the Jupiter project is very familiar with what's going to happen. However, there were many people who came in late and might not have been too familiar with the whole process.”

He also expressed his frustrations about the situation: ^[1]

“What frustrates me the most is that we feel very misunderstood. We've put in a lot of work over the years trying to create a new model. We were unsure about what to do; it's like we're stuck. We have this massive airdrop going on, and we're not sure if there's enough liquidity in the market to execute such a big airdrop. At the same time, there are really high expectations about the price, but we didn't set the price, by the way.”

“I believe part of the disparity between what our community sees and what the outside world sees is that our community knows that we've been here for years, grinding over every single aspect of the product. From the infrastructure side to the routing side, to the UI side, to the ecosystem building side, and really making it work awesomely…It was a lot of effort to come together, you know? So, maybe if you're new to the whole thing, you just go, ‘Oh, this is crappy,’ but then if you're part of the community, you'll see the work that's been done over the years. So, I feel like that's actually one disparity I see about why there's such a big difference in opinions between someone who just goes, ‘Oh, why is this thing worth X?’ versus people saying, ‘Oh yeah, this makes sense because they've been working for years.’ So, I feel like that could actually be another reason why there's such a big difference in opinions.”

“After the launch, it got way, way overhyped, you know? Yeah, so the launch went well, like it had a massive airdrop, over a few hundred people got the airdrop, and they were really happy with it, and the community got formed. The issue was that after the launch happened, it got way overhyped, and then there was also a bunch of hype and talk around the liquidity and the burn. Yeah, I think we could have managed that hype a lot better.”

Presentations

Breakpoint 2023

At Breakpoint 2023, Meow discussed the developments and achievements of Jupiter in 2023. He highlighted Jupiter's commitment to enhancing its decentralized trading system on Solana, including developing a new routing engine and introducing products like swap, limit order, and DCA. With a large user base and transaction volume, Jupiter became a larger platform in the DeFi space, processing a considerable amount of retail flow on Solana. He emphasized Jupiter's core principles, such as providing the best price, selection, and user experience, as well as its efforts to push the technological limits of Solana and improve the liquidity landscape. Initiatives like Jupiter Start were introduced to foster community collaboration and launch new projects on Solana. ^[2]