Solana-based Jupiter Exchange is projected to buy back upward of $100 million worth of its native JUP (JUP) token annually, potentially creating a steady source of demand.
On Feb. 13, the decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator announced that it would commence buying back its tokens with protocol revenue. Starting on Feb. 17, it will allocate 50% of protocol fees to buy back JUP. According to Jupiter, the tokens will be locked for three years.
“The consistent buy pressure will have a positive effect,” crypto research Aylo said in an X post, asserting the move “increases [the] number of potential new buyers, and absorbs sellers more effectively.”
“Jupiter still has enormous growth potential too, so it’s not a ‘value trap’,” Aylo added.
Source: Aylo
Related: Solana app revenues up 213% in Q4: Messari
Rising volumes
Jupiter is the most popular DEX aggregator, with around $3.2 billion in daily volume as of Feb. 14, according to DefiLlama. It has earned roughly $6 million in fees since inception, the data shows.
As an aggregator, Jupiter routes users’ trades to various other DEXs, such as Raydium, for the cheapest swaps. It also lets traders set limit orders to automatically buy tokens at specific trigger prices.
Jupiter has benefited from Solana’s surging trading volumes, largely driven by increased memecoin activity.
Since 2024, Solana-based Raydium has emerged as the most popular DEX by 30-day trading volume, eclipsing Uniswap, a DEX that originated on the Ethereum network — Solana’s main rival blockchain.
Jupiter is currently the most popular DEX aggregator by trading volume. Source: DefiLlama
Buyback bonanza
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are under increasing pressure to provide tokenholders with a share of protocol revenues, with projects such as Aave, Ethena and Ether.fi piloting value-accrual mechanisms for their native tokens.
This is partly due to Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 win in the US presidential election, which signaled the outset of a friendlier regulatory environment for DeFi protocols, asset manager Grayscale said in December.
On Nov. 15, Ethena, a yield-bearing stablecoin issuer, agreed to share a portion of its roughly $200 million in protocol revenues with tokenholders.
In December, liquid restaking token (LRT) issuer Ether.fi proposed allocating 5% of protocol revenues to buy back native ETHFI tokens and distribute them to stakers.
Following this trend, Maple Finance said in January that it was considering using protocol revenues to buy back native SYRUP tokens and distribute them as rewards to stakers.
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