“Jupiter is HOME”,
That sounds beautiful, welcoming and a perfect representation of what a good home is or at least expected to be until you navigate deeply and sincerely only to discover the Jupiverse isn’t as homely as it was projected by the Jupiter team and echoed by everyone (myself included) across X and other platforms ceaselessly on a daily bases.
The good news is that all is not over yet because Jupiverse is just starting and with a quick response from the team and DAO community, we can avoid the collusion and save our planet Jupiter to keep Jupiverse safe, loving and a welcoming home INDEED!.
I will organize my thoughts and future suggestions for what the rescue operation can be or at least look like (It is a long essay - buckle up fellow cats 
- hope you accept my apology for not being so articulate to have it summarized because have decided not to use AI tools and express myself in my pure writing style).
PROBLEMS:
- Partially Transparent Leadership
- Non-Open Grants/Bounty
- Non-Diversity In Embracing Community Independent Creators/Contributors
- The DAO grants team’s current focus and approach aren’t good enough (+ my inspiring story on how to do it better)
THE PROBLEMS / SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
1. PROBLEM: Partially Transparent Leadership
Meow is a transparent leader (his handling of Jupuary 2024 that gave 50/50% Jup tokenomics to serve the community convinced me to join the DAO).
But he is too much of a people pleaser and that is not a good enough trait for Jupiverse’s top leadership considering those he surrounds himself with at the top there isn’t too knee to be realistic with him.
Remember, you can’t give what you don’t have - many of them don’t have track records of leading transparency in their projects before being onboarded into Jupiverse leadership roles - transparency required by DAO is different from building billion-dollar worth projects that are led without transparency which often results in what we experience with SBF/FTX and the recent Libra token scam).
SOLUTION (Opinion - debatable, add yours in comment):
(1) Meow needs to ensure he surrounds himself with not just so-called top talents with less track record of transparency and community trust but those that actually have it and the Jupiter DAO community can attest to it.
To be clear Jupiverse seems to gradually becoming Superteam DAO 2.0.
While I appreciate Superteam in helping onboard huge people to the Solana ecosystem and have also BENEFITED been a Superteam member since 2023 and have gotten over $20,000 in grants (proof here).
Superteam is just a DAO by mouth (I call such TAO - Team Autonomous Organization not DAO) and the top leadership hasn’t proven to be worth leading a DAO like Jupiter where its foundation and future success depends on TRANSPARENCY.
If you doubt it, kindly point me to one link where the superteam DAO members had a say on the direction of anything via a public DAO governance vote.
When a few core teams make all decisions and just announce it to the community, nothing wrong with that except you should stop calling it DAO and will be fine.
A lot of those Superteam teams are also now calling the short in top positions in Jupiverse (no hard feelings, more wins for them), it’s just that they need to understand what goes for Superteam DAO won’t be acceptable in Jupiverse because here the DAO community are in charge as it ought to be not the other way round.
(2) Meow may need to be more transparent with the community on how controversial proposals like the “2030 Proposal” are before finalizing for voting:
For example, I thought the 280Million JUP tokens for 65 people was their actual package+bonuses but in spaces, someone asked for clarity and when Meow clarified that:
“the talent team will receive their normal Salary + bonuses (in USDC) and the 280 million JUP is just a Jup bonus for alignment”
- What?
100,000+JUP ($75,000+) monthly for 3 years for just alignment? that’s way too much as an alignment bonus but those guys Meow surrounds himself with are -defending it - the same people that easily water down real talents compensation within the ecosystem when they are not part of their few elite circles!
If it is truly about valuing talent, why do they systematically devalue talents within the Jupiverse while overpricing themselves at every opportunity?
For more clarity on the proposal, I suggest you read some community views about it:
I.
ii.
Hope you are reading this Meow:
Dear Meow, PLEASE keep this in mind, if anything goes wrong with Jupiverse, you are the leader and the one to be left to answer for it while a lot of these people will hop on to another thriving project. So, take responsibility for those you putting in charge of Jupiverse with utmost care - The Jupiverse community’s trust in your transparency is your strength and should never be abused! - I wish you Wisdom, Courage & Strength to lead Jupiverse to the success you dreamt of years before it existed!
2. PROBLEMS: Non-Open Grants/Bounty
(1) Few people call the shot of who gets or does not get a grant. That is not helping the DAO. Let the DAO decide who or what is helpful to the community, not a few people.
(2) Having the Grant on Superteam isn’t transparent enough when all you get as a response when rejected is:
“However, we regret to inform you that your project is not currently a good fit for the Jupiter DAO grant”
How does the above response help genuine independent creators/developers and contributors in the Jupiverse stay encouraged and adjust to meet up in future applications?
(3) Bounty - $100,000 Catstanbul Bounty for example isn’t transparent enough.
WHY?
It says participants should tweet and include the word “Catstanbul” in the tweet.
I wondered how the team scanned efficiently through the whole of X to identify those they chose as winners when there was no place to submit it (No place to submit a $100k bounty? -
A post could have been created here on JupResearch and let participants share their entries so the community can check them out and also help gain exposure for them within the community).
Eventually, I wasn’t surprised the already-known names in the ecosystem won a huge part of the bounty (I share for them and no hard feels but PLEASE let’s remember unknown independent creators grinding to contribute to the Jupiverse and create a FAIR system where everyone is fairly rewarded and not same top already known keep getting more money in the name of content quality and virality).
Am not saying reward everyone the same, but fairness will ensure no matter how small a creator/contributor you are you get something fair when compared to what the top is getting for your current level without disparity (this will encourage smaller contributors to aspire and grow bigger within the Jupiverse).
SOLUTION (Opinion - debatable, add yours in comment):
Exceptions: Where there will be few people to decide grants, let them be selected via voting by the community and rotated maybe yearly to ensure the few know that they are accountable to the DAO and it is not the community that is expected to conform to them.
It should not also be a few people selecting a few people and claiming it represents the DAO choice - Nope!
(1) I think there should be a dedicated section for “Grants/Bounties” similar to “Proposal” and community member can submit their grant proposal openly on JupResearch for every DAO member to assess following a given format.
It can have a voting (like thumb up/down) feature (no need for a normal vote on vote.jup.ag for this).
There are a lot of benefits:
I. People know it’s the whole community that will check and judge their proposal, so they will be more cautious to ensure the community actually has or will benefit from its approval.
ii. The grantee can also turn the Proposal page into an update page either approved yet or not or even when rejected to continuously update the community on what they are doing with the grant (or towards qualifying to get a grant)
iii. More exposure to independent community contributions - which encourages others to identify areas they too can contribute to the DAO growth.
3. PROBLEMS + SOLUTION: Non-Diversity In Embracing Community Independent Creators/Contributors
(without expecting them to meet a strict set of illusional standards by a few elites who have been elevated to positions within the DAO)
(1) I noticed that the few in charge of grants want every independent content creator to conform to their own standard. They seem not to understand the differences between official Jupiter content by well-paid working groups and independent community creators just trying their best to contribute positively to the Jupiverse.
We need people there who understand this and stop underrating other’s content within the community.
(2) Please the DAO supports like Grant be inclusive of supporting independent contributors without forcing them to some standard as long as they do not project the Jupiverse in a bad light and are not limited to until you are viral and well known by the team.
NOT all community contributions should be geared towards becoming a Working Group so that the expectation for them can be less strict to encourage diversity of independent (non-official) small (usually individual) creators’ content to thrive in Jupiverse.
They should be subjected to certain strict rules only if they want to turn it into a Working Group.
DAO Grant should be geared more towards these independent small contributors and their unique ideas than sponsoring just trial working groups (I mean they should become the main focus, not the alternative as it is today for the current DAO grants team if we truly care about talents and want to encourage them to continue to contribute to growing the Jupiverse pie).
Part of the work of the Jupiter grants team should be to actively search those independent contributors and even encourage and guide them on getting support and grants within the community. - For now, they are doing the opposite to independent small creators within the Jupiverse and that needs to change!
We will be amazed at how this will cause a positive explosion of independent and unique contributions to growing the Jupiverse.
(3) The current team seems to be showing signs of undervaluing independent community contributions but not the same when they want cash for their own few circle of talents and contributions.
For example, I shared on X, how I applied for the “Jupiter Regional Events” grant to host two (2) meal-styled events for ($600 at $300 each) with a target of 15-25+ people to foster continuous growth locally in Ghana.
I got on a call (based on his request) with one of the grant team yesterday, only to tell me to convince him to approve $100-$150 per event for at least 100+ attendees - What?
Am in Ghana where $1 = GHC16 not in Nigeria where it is $1 = N1,400 (Even in Nigeria things arent cheap. So a high dollar conversion rate does not always mean cheap things everywhere).
I even let him realise that here, in Ghana, it is not easy to gather people for tech things because the country is not as tech-savvy as Nigeria (If you doubt me, kindly look around crypto as a whole to find how many crypto events hosted in Ghana in last 1-3years compared to India, Nigeria, Germany, USA, UK etc.).
How does he expect me to produce 100+ people and host them, pay for the event centre, snacks, drinks, and marketing and end up getting $100-$150 for the whole of such an event where you guys want 100K+ Jups per month as alignment bonus for so-called talents and earn huge as a working group?
- It is when its community talents turn that Jup DAO actually becomes fugal with alignment compensation
This is UNFAIR -
They even announced this grant to be:
"Focus on unconference-style gatherings where “the community is the star” -
how is requesting 100+ people, not a conference style?
An uncompassionate person like that shouldn’t be leading the Grants as we need people who are not out of touch with reality when dealing with community contributors/talents!
I also started 100 Days “JupFAQAnswered” Challenge with a dedicated youtube channel and X account where I answer at least 1 question about Jupiter with videos daily.
He called that “just a talking head and a board” video, who would watch such videos that needed real editing etc.
He called the JupFAQAnswered website not modern (at least it fulfils simple user need I built it for which is to search Jupiter FAQ with organized categories for navigation and get my video answers for it popup and far more modern than Meow’s blog that we all read and enjoy without complaint ).
No single appreciation to encourage me considering am doing all this with my own money, time and resources (have never gotten any funds or grant from the Jupiter DAO for it). I wonder what they will say and expect to deliver if even eventually get a grant!
If can’t appreciate it, then do not criticise unconstructively out-of-touch reality of those pouring their heart, resources and mind to push the DAO forward in their own little way and style (they don’t earn fat like working groups and can’t afford to produce some quality expected).
4. The DAO grants team’s current focus and approach aren’t good enough
(+ my inspiring story on how to do it better)
Part of the work of the Jupiter grants team should be to actively search those independent contributors and even encourage and guide them on getting support and grants within the community.
It’s surprising that for now, they are doing the opposite to independent small creators as if they are the boss trying to help the needy creators with some token funds and thus they must conform to their unrealistic standard or not get the little grants within the Jupiverse and that needs to change!
My Inspiring Story For Fellow Small Independent Creators Contributing To Jupiverse - Do Not Give up!
Let me share a live experience of how if my statement above is followed can be a heart of kindness that makes an independent talent creators community thrive in Jupiverse:
I do create Web3 Developer Guides relating to Solana on my platform dProgrammingUniversity, shared on X and tagged multiple Solana Foundation DevRel teams (as usually been doing it for a while and have been ignored - its a common phenomenon in Web3, even when promoting a project, and you are not yet known(popular), you easily get ignored).
I have been doing this for a while, then one day just before I posted on X, somehow I landed on someone I never knew or saw his tweet before and he happens to be a member of the Solana Foundation DevRel Team. So, I included his handle in the tag and in a few minutes it triggered a chain of events:
(i). He retweeted the tweet (and suddenly other DevRels have been tagging and ignoring me suddenly began retweeting the tweet)
(ii) He read the article and sent me DM to appreciate me for taking the time to create such an in-depth guide to help Solana developers
(iii) He then said, he noticed the quality of my audio, and he thinks I need a new microphone and he will discuss it with the Devrel team to get me a good one. I was surprised, a few days after one of the Solana DevRel team contacted me to get my details to ship it and about a week after, the Microphone was delivered to my doorstep. And also some cash compensation followed.
That same Microphone is what I still use to record the videos for “JupFAQAnswered” today.
That is how you encourage independent creators and not just throw criticism of expecting them to deliver quality levels of multiple teams like you which also get huge funding.
The Solana DevRel name is drum roll, please… Jonas Hahn
(Kindly check him out and say thank you on my behave too - If possible to onboard him into Jupiverse because those are the types of people we need to handle grants and identify and promote talents/creators within the Jupiverse - he will connect with creators at the level they are and encourage them to keep growing the pie not devalue them!)
CONCLUSION
"If web3 is high paying, PLEASE let it go around not high paying when it few selected people and low paying when it turns of the community and independent talents/creators contributing to the Jupiverse.
Though I was discouraged by the teams’ attitudes, I have decided to not give up on the 100 Days “JupFAQAnswered” Challenge (am on Day 11 as of 8th/March/2025) to contribute my part to grow the Jupiverse pie in my own unique way with no intention to conform to their standards and will appreciate the community support.
Kindly check it out, if you like my content, Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Follow on X and if you can Please consider DONATING to support in keeping this going to achieve the 100 Days challenge.
Thanks!
