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Solana Airdrop Season: JTO, PYTH, JUP

Drops that reshaped Solana TVL.

PYTH, November 20, 2023

The Pyth Network oracle airdropped 255 million PYTH from a 10 billion supply to users of more than 200 protocols that consumed its price feeds. PYTH listed near $0.30 and later reached about $1.20 in March 2024.

JTO, December 7, 2023

Jito, the Solana liquid staking and MEV protocol, distributed 90 million JTO, 9 percent of supply, to JitoSOL holders and MEV searchers. JTO opened near $2 and rose to about $4.90 days later; median allocations were worth several thousand dollars.

JUP, January 31, 2024

Jupiter, Solana's largest DEX aggregator, airdropped 1 billion JUP of a 10 billion supply to nearly 1 million wallets in its first Jupuary. It also introduced active staking rewards for governance votes.

The wealth effect

Together these drops sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Solana users when SOL was recovering from under $20 to over $100. Fees from recipients swapping tokens added to on-chain activity, and new projects copied points programs.

Points meta and Sybil filtering

Each project used different eligibility formulas, from volume tiers on Jupiter to feeds consumed on Pyth. Later programs quoted points before tokens, making it possible to estimate value as user share of points times airdrop pool times projected FDV.

By the numbers

For Solana Airdrop Season, the reference figures are pyth of Nov 2023, jto of Dec 7, 2023, jup of Jan 31, 2024, effect of TVL growth. The comparison table below lines up token, date, airdrop, supply — PYTH: Nov 20, 2023 / 255M / 10B; JTO: Dec 7, 2023 / 90M / 1B; JUP: Jan 31, 2024 / 1B / 10B.

Modeling Solana Airdrop Season with the Historical Airdrop ATH Vs Current Calculator

The Historical Airdrop ATH Vs Current Calculator takes three inputs — Tokens received, ATH price ($), Current price ($). Missed value = tokens × (ATH − current). With its default inputs (Tokens received = 1000; ATH price ($) = 15; Current price ($) = 3) it returns 12,000 $; swap in the figures from Solana Airdrop Season above to reproduce the scenario yourself.

Modeling Solana Airdrop Season with the Speculative Airdrop Points FDV Calculator

The Speculative Airdrop Points FDV Calculator takes three inputs — Your share (%), Assumed FDV ($M), Airdrop share (%). Value = share × FDV × airdrop %. With its default inputs (Your share (%) = 0.01; Assumed FDV ($M) = 2000; Airdrop share (%) = 10) it returns 20,000 $; swap in the figures from Solana Airdrop Season above to reproduce the scenario yourself.

Data Table

For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Figures are approximate and historical; crypto assets are volatile and you may lose capital. Do your own research.