Solana’s Jupiter to expand $2.7bn app with new multi-blockchain network

GM, Tim here.

• Solana’s Jupiter is building its own blockchain.
• Why Kevin Owocki still believes in DAOs.
• Tornado Cash scores a major victory.

Jupiter expands

Jupiter, a decentralised exchange aggregator and suite of protocols on Solana, just announced plans to build its own multi-blockchain network at its Catstanbul conference in Turkey.

The new network, called Jupnet, will let users and other DeFi apps hold funds and transact across many different blockchains while maintaining decentralisation.

“We believe that Jupnet is the perfect place to host the global unified market, where all the possible tradable assets are connected in one single network,” Jupiter co-founder Ming Ng said in a blog post.

Jupnet, An Omnichain Networkhttps://t.co/jWZEQSYNms https://t.co/crYwv90sCZ

— meow (🐱, 🐐) (@weremeow) January 25, 2025

It’s the latest instance of a popular DeFi app developing its own blockchain.

There are good reasons to do so.

Dedicated blockchains mean projects can prevent malicious forms of MEV impacting their users. Additionally, they don’t have to share resources and bandwidth with other DeFi protocols on the same blockchain, preventing congestion.

Jupiter is growing fast. Over the past year its deposits swelled to over $2.7 billion, making it the second-biggest Solana app behind liquid staking protocol Jito.

Also announced at the conference: Jupiter’s acquisition of a majority stake in Moonshot, which soared in popularity after US President Donald Trump’s recent memecoin launch, and the introduction of a $10 million fund to support open-source AI.

Last week, Jupiter conducted its second token airdrop, distributing around $600 million worth of JUP to those who used the protocol and participated in its DAO over the past year.

Believing in DAOs

Decentralised autonomous organisations — or DAOs — were supposed to usher in an egalitarian revolution in the way online organisations were governed.

Yet, too often, a select few control the governance tokens that shape the growth of DAOs. Worse still, no one votes on key proposals.

But Kevin Owocki, one of the co-founders of Gitcoin, is still a believer.

For all their failures, the successes of DAOs still shine out brightly.

Aave, the biggest DeFi protocol with $35 billion in deposits, is governed by a DAO. PleasrDAO, a collective of DeFi leaders, early NFT collectors, and digital artists, pool funds to buy digital art or even incubate budding startups.

Unlike limited companies or traditional co-ops, DAOs have no formal CEO. Instead, its mass of financially incentivised tokenholders who ensure the organisation progresses towards its goals.

This lack of formal structure has been a sticking point, especially when defining who is liable when things go wrong.

Owocki’s unfazed by the snags. Companies, as we know them today, he says, have had hundreds of years of case law to iron out the wrinkles.

“DAOs have only been evolving for a few years. We have to let them cook,” said Owocki.

Tornado Cash’s victory

Tornado Cash supporters are celebrating after the US government did not oppose a court ruling that gutted sanctions of the privacy protocol, which authorities previously said poses a threat to national security.

“This [is] an absolute win,” Preston Van Loon, a plaintiff in the case, wrote on X.

The case concerns US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, sanctions against Tornado Cash.

In November, a three judge panel in New Orleans found that computer programmes, in this case smart contracts employed by Tornado Cash, are not sanctionable the same way people or companies are.

On Tuesday, the judges signalled the Treasury had not asked them to reconsider that opinion, and ordered a lower court based in Texas to remedy the situation.

That could go two ways, according to Matt McGuire, a partner at Arktouros, a law firm that specialises in sanctions compliance and DeFi.

On the one hand, the court could allow US residents to start using Tornado Cash again, he told DL News.

But on the other, the court could only lift the sanctions for Van Loon and his co-plaintiffs.

“That would allow the plaintiffs to use the smart contracts, but the [sanctions] designation would still be in force for all other US persons,” McGuire said.

This week in DeFi governance

VOTE: Lido DAO votes to establish the BORG Foundation to foster institutional and ecosystem growth

VOTE: Arbitrum DAO to set up a SOS initiative to help define the DAO’s goals

VOTE: GMX DAO mulls network fee smoothing proposal

Post of the week

Crypto Twitter continues to lament Ethereum’s poor performance.

Be kind to everyone.

You never know what someone is going through. pic.twitter.com/yMioz51Y6z

— naiive (@naiivememe) January 22, 2025

Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at tim@dlnews.com.