The Jup DAO Vote Turnaround: Jupuary Vote #1 to Vote #2
Jupuary is an annual event by Jupiter where JUP tokens are distributed to the community. 50% of the JUP token supply is allocated to the community. While the initial drop was decided internally by the team for the upcoming ones, the community was the decision maker.
Seeking the opinion of the community to approve a multi-billion dollar plan was one of the important experiments not just for Jupiter but in the history of DAOs.
Jupuary is a first-of-its-kind event, where voters are asked to grow the pie in a very major way. If we don’t have a really good conversation around it, we will run into big problems. — Meow
The 1st proposal for Jupuary did not pass, there was major FUD. But the 2nd one passed comfortably crossing the already high threshold set by the team.
Let us see how one of the largest turnarounds happened at such a large scale.
Resolve Conflicts → Align Members → Achieve Meaningful Outcomes
The Chaos Before Vote 1
Even before the vote #1 proposal was live there were days of discussion with the community. And the discussions caused a lot of community stress. There were divided responses from the community some being strong supporters and some being skeptics.
Time for Vote #1
This vote needed a 70% supermajority to pass — a very high bar. But this was something intentional. This higher threshold was to ensure that there is no ambiguity and a larger majority accepts the proposal.
JUP is the most important resource of the Jupiverse and it should be used carefully. So it is necessary to unify the entire community.
There was always an option for the team just to impose their decision on everyone. Sure, but that would just leave a divided community at the end. What else can be a worse outcome for the DAO than a disengaged community?
The vision meow had wasn’t just to pass a proposal — it was to build consensus, even if it took time.
The vote phrasing itself reflected this vision. Instead of just a yes or no, voters were asked how “comfortable” they were with the proposal.
Such a framing is important because it acknowledges the human element behind governance decisions. These are actual people — voters who are making the decisions about the future.
As the vote was live, the team listened to the feedback. As soon as anyone voted they were shown a feedback form. The team gathered over 12,000 feedback from verified voters with this mechanism.
(In case you want to see, all the feedback is here: https://jup-governance-git-feat-show-all-feedbacks-wowcats.vercel.app/all-feedbacks)
Vote #1 results: Falling short
346M JUP voted — 58% comfortable and 42% uncomfortable with the proposal.
While the result was promising it fell short of the 70% supermajority.
So that means there has to be a 2nd vote now!
Listening, Learning, and Moving to Vote 2
The team didn't see this as a failure — it was an opportunity to align more community members. So the team reviewed the feedback from all sources — both from the verified voters as well as from discussions around Twitter and Discord. (The total feedback was around 20,000)
Although vote #1 did not get the supermajority, but the good outcome was all the feedback that the team received.
The team do not want to avoid any conflicts but seeks honest opinions. Each one of the community members who voiced their opinion was heard.
With this feedback, the team revised the Vote #2 proposal.
What changed in 2nd proposal?
Key Changes:
- Incentives for Holding, Buying, and Voting:
A portion of the allocation would now directly incentivize actions that demonstrated commitment to the ecosystem throughout the year. Unclaimed JUP will also go into ASR. - Rewarding Stakers:
A new, explicit allocation was added for stalkers, with bonuses for long-term consistency - Focus on real users:
Explicitly excluded bots. Focusing on rewarding real, consistent participants in the ecosystem
The core philosophy is always about growing the pie.
Vote 2 results: The Alignment
When this revised proposal was put to vote there was an overwhelming confirmation from the community.
From 58% comfortable in vote #1 it went to 87% comfortable in vote #2.
Getting buy-in from the majority to grow the pie was a remarkable feat. Community members did not just vote on a proposal but they decided on their future and the future of Jup together.
Right from the start there were 3 votes planned, meow wanted to unify the community. The team was not going to just give up or push it through without finding alignment. If vote 2 hadn't passed there would have been one more voting round.
Conclusion: Our > My
This experiment was about one of the biggest decisions for the Jupiverse. It showed how governance can be done in DAOs. It is not just about making decisions — it’s about building trust and bringing the community closer together.
The pie is bigger now and the community is stronger.
I know this is an incredibly large investment by the DAO in the long term growth of the Jupiverse, and I will work super hard with everyone to ensure that the investment pays off. -Meow
For any feedback or suggestion please reach out to me @its0xRay on X or Discord. If you found this essay helpful, do consider sharing it with your friends who may be interested in exploring the Jupiverse.
