Solana’s Blockchain Heats Up: Transactions Surge during Jupiter Airdrop

• The Solana network has experienced network congestion as excitement for the highly anticipated JUP airdrop intensifies.                                                                                                                 
• Despite a significant increase in the network’s transactions, Solana has managed to remain fully functional.

The Solana blockchain network is facing some major difficulties, which came at a time when anticipation for a notable airdrop is mounting amongst community members.

Notably, Solana Explorer revealed that the network has recorded a massive spike in its transaction volume, amidst the excitement for the Jupiter airdrop.

The network has seen its transactions nearly double at this time. Transactions per seconds (TPS) which was initially at 1,900 has increased to more than 3,000. This massive change was recorded in minutes, not long after the airdrop kicked off.

Another metric that spotlighted the increase in activities recorded on the Solana blockchain is the Average Ping time (APT). The ATP refers to the time between the start and the completion of the process, which has now surged from 20,000 milliseconds to more than 60,000 milliseconds, tripling the initial time frame.

Jupiter recently announced the airdrop of the network’s native token JUP. Users of the Jupiter network will distribute tokens to Jupiter users as a means to reward usage and support.

An estimated 367,000 addresses have secured $340 million worth of JUP tokens. With a total of $624 million set aside for the airdrop, $284 million worth of JUP is still up for grabs.

Jupiter embarks on a journey to solve DeFi’s centralization problems

The hype surrounding Jupiter’s native token (Jup) airdrop seems to have congested the Solana network. This indicates that in the short term, the network might not be able to process transactions. Although the new development should typically alarm network users, the blockchain has managed to remain fully operational.

Jupiter, a Solana-based liquidity aggregator, is attempting to solve a major problem in the DeFi ecosystem, by tackling the problem of liquidity fragmentation and uneven token distribution.

Liquidity fragmentation happens when existing liquidity is distributed across multiple trading platforms. These problems are kneeing to tamper with trading and raise issues relating to centralization.

By tapping into decentralized exchanges and pooling liquidity, Jupiter is on a journey to improve tracing experiences amongst users. Taking to X, to amply this point, Meow, the pseudonym founder of Jupiter is quoted saying;

“Jupiter is a full stack ecosystem play to try to push forward a new parallel financial system along with the entire community. We deeply respect all pioneers, and we are building on top of the amazing foundation they have built.”

Meanwhile, Solana’s native token SOL is still on the verge of tapping the $100 price mark. After peaking at $99 for the past few days, selling pressure has intensified as hourly losses pile up. SOL is now trading at a press time price of $94.