TL;DR:
This essay questions the actual influence of the Jupiter DAO and whether the community of JUP stakers has real power over the project’s direction. While the team emphasizes decentralization and invites community participation, all proposals to date have come exclusively from the team itself. There is currently no clear path for independent community members to submit proposals for vote, making governance reactive rather than proactive. This disconnect creates the impression that the DAO structure may be more of a marketing tool than a truly decentralized institution. The essay outlines steps needed to empower the community and make the DAO meaningful, including enabling community-led proposals, establishing governance tooling, and clarifying the boundaries between team control and community ownership.
DAO or Decoration? Rethinking Community Power in the Jupiter Ecosystem
“If we stake the token, do we own the protocol — or are we just voting on what the team allows?”
As a committed member of the Jupiter community and a JUP staker, I’ve watched recent events unfold with a growing sense of concern — not just about the token’s price, but about something deeper: the true role of the community in the so-called decentralized governance system we call the DAO.
The Jupiter team often speaks about decentralization, the power of community, and the importance of shared ownership. But when we look at who sets the agenda, who writes the proposals, and who gets to initiate change, a different picture emerges.
This essay explores what the team seems to believe a DAO is, how that contrasts with what a healthy DAO should be, and why many in the community are starting to feel like our voices — and our stakes — don’t yet come with real power.
How the Team Defines the DAO (and What It Really Means in Practice)
From the recent livestream (“JUP Rally: Forward”) and previous team statements, it’s clear that the Jupiter team defines the DAO as:
A body of JUP stakers who vote on proposals — mainly those created by the core team — that relate to the use of the community treasury and broader ecosystem decisions.
They’ve reiterated:
- The team treasury and decisions about operations, acquisitions, salaries, etc., are fully team-controlled.
- The DAO treasury is community-controlled — meaning no funds are moved without DAO votes.
- Team actions must be approved by governance, and the team claims they respect the will of the DAO.
So far, that sounds fair — in theory.
But in practice, every single major vote has come from the team. There’s no visible way for the community to:
- Submit proposals on equal footing
- Advance ideas to formal vote without team support
- Influence the roadmap with bottom-up direction
This means the community is effectively reactive, not empowered. We respond to proposals. We don’t initiate them.
What Is “Community” in Jupiter?
The team defines the community as the thousands of users, builders, writers, developers, and voters who make up the JUPiverse. That includes people who:
- Bought and staked JUP (many with significant capital)
- Vote in DAO decisions
- Share memes, guides, and tweets
- Help test new tools and spread adoption
But here’s the disconnect:
The team speaks as though the community is the soul of the project — yet the community has no real pathway to shape it.
In a true decentralized system, power doesn’t flow just from proposals — it flows from the ability to participate in the proposal process itself.
The Problem: Community Votes Without Community Agency
At the moment, the DAO is not a forum for community-led direction. It’s a stage on which the team presents options and asks for approval.
Yes, proposals are public. Yes, votes are binding. But:
- There’s no tooling for community proposals to reach an on-chain vote
- No documented process for how an independent idea becomes a formal DAO issue
- No examples yet of community-led proposals going to a vote without team sponsorship
So despite the emphasis on DAO structure, what we have now is:
- Governance in form, not fully in function
- A system where only the team sets the agenda, and token holders get to approve or reject their plans — but not offer their own
That’s not decentralization. That’s delegation.
What Should a DAO Actually Be?
A proper DAO gives real agency to its members — in this case, the JUP stakers who are financially and emotionally invested in the future of Jupiter.
In a healthy DAO:
- Any token holder can propose ideas
- Proposals go through a community process (forum → discussion → vote threshold)
- Votes shape not just what the team builds, but how the ecosystem evolves
In Jupiter right now:
- There’s no structured path to bring community ideas forward
- The team alone introduces proposals
- Community voting feels more like feedback than shared leadership
Why This Matters
It matters because many of us:
- Bought and staked JUP with our own capital
- Voted, discussed, engaged
- Believed in the promise of a decentralized project
And now we’re asking: Are we stakeholders or spectators?
We aren’t demanding full control. We respect the team’s execution and vision. But decentralization without shared initiation is just centralization in disguise.
Without the ability to propose, to lead, and to build alongside the team — the DAO becomes decoration. A seal of approval, not a steering wheel.
What Needs to Change
If the Jupiter team truly wants to live up to the values they speak about, here are clear steps that could make the DAO meaningful:
- Open Proposal Framework
Allow any JUP staker (above a minimum threshold) to submit proposals and gather support. - DAO Tooling
Build a formal process: forum threads → temperature checks → quorum rules → on-chain votes. - Defined Rights & Limits
Clarify what the DAO can control (e.g. tokenomics, treasury, partnerships) and what the team retains (e.g. internal hires, tech execution). - Community Budget Access
Let community members request and vote on funding for ideas — content, dev tools, local hubs, outreach, etc. - Public Roadmap for Governance Maturity
The team should publish their plans for DAO development so we know when and how we’ll gain more agency.
My Personal Feeling
In my view, what the Jupiter team has created is, without doubt, one of the most effective ecosystems for promoting and shilling their own token, platform, and brand. The tools, the interface, the website, the decentralized exchange — they are polished, powerful, and incredibly well marketed. But beneath that surface lies a deeper issue: the illusion of community power.
The community is made to believe it holds influence over the future of the project through the DAO. Yet in reality, the core power remains firmly in the hands of the team. All major decisions and proposals originate from them. The DAO — while promoted as a democratic tool — operates more like a feedback system for pre-decided plans than a genuine governance mechanism.
The reason the community is needed, it seems, is not to govern, but to market. Community members are mobilized to amplify the brand, create content, and lend legitimacy to the idea of decentralization. But when it comes to value creation for token holders — such as designing mechanisms to strengthen the JUP token’s price, or sharing a portion of platform revenue with stakers — nothing meaningful has been delivered.
If the team genuinely cared about empowering the DAO — the actual people who invested their money into JUP — they would have created systems that align their success with token holder benefit. Instead, the system incentivizes endless participation and engagement, but offers no financial feedback loop in return. It’s easier, after all, to talk about “community-driven governance” than to actually share control or profits with a decentralized group of strangers.
At the end of the day, the community is equipped with a voting system — but only to vote on what the team decides is worth discussing. Proposals of real consequence rarely, if ever, originate outside the inner circle. And that’s the core of the problem: we have the shell of a DAO, but not its soul.
Final Thought
Jupiter has built something powerful. The products are great, the energy is real, and the ecosystem is vibrant. But decentralization isn’t just about token distribution or a cool interface.
It’s about shared direction — giving the people who’ve invested in this journey a true role in shaping where we go.
Right now, we’re a community with a stake, but not yet a voice. And that has to change — not only to align with the spirit of Web3, but to unlock the full power of what a DAO can be.
Let’s turn the DAO from a checkbox into a channel.
Let’s turn the community from voters into visionaries.
Let’s build Jupiter the way it was meant to be built — together.
I hope for the better - ihateoranges