Propose an edit: meow

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meow is the pseudonymous founder and public leader of [[jupiter]], the swap aggregator that routes the majority of retail trading on [[Solana]] and sits underneath much of the day to day activity of [[the trenches]]. He is one of the most visible figures in the Solana ecosystem while never using a legal name in public: he appears at conferences, on podcasts and in long X threads simply as meow, posting from the handle @weremeow. He has described the cat persona as a statement about staying alert and adaptable in crypto rather than as strict anonymity.

## Background

Profiles of meow describe a long history in crypto infrastructure before Jupiter, including advisory roles at Kyber Network, Instadapp and Blockfolio, and a role in creating Wrapped Bitcoin, the largest wrapped token. In 2021 he co founded Mercurial Finance, a stablecoin exchange on Solana, alongside [[ben chow]]. Mercurial's exchange functions were later reorganized into [[meteora]] under Chow, while meow launched Jupiter in October 2021 with co founder Siong Ong.

## Jupiter and the Jupuary airdrops

Jupiter grew into Solana's default trade router, and its retail products, including the LFG launchpad, a mobile app and a majority stake in the Moonshot trading app acquired in January 2025, made meow a central builder of the meme coin era's plumbing. He popularized "Jupuary," an annual January airdrop of JUP. The first, in January 2024, sent 1 billion JUP to roughly a million early users, one of the largest airdrops in Solana history. When critics attacked the allocation and the retained team share, meow pushed back in interviews with the phrase "give me a break," defending the community first distribution. Jupuary 2025 distributed 700 million JUP, worth around $600 million at the time, to about 2 million wallets.

## Governance crisis

Between the airdrops and the eventual cancellation of Jupuary came a governance crisis. In mid 2025 the Jupiter DAO paused all voting through the end of the year. Kash Dhanda, Jupiter's self described cat herder, announced the pause writing "the current DAO structure isn't working as intended. We hear the complaints," citing a "perpetual FUD cycle that grows with every vote." The backlash centered on team voting power: the team held 20 percent of the 10 billion JUP supply, and one team member alone had cast over 4.5 percent of votes on a recent proposal, while JUP's market cap had fallen about 37 percent from its 1.9 billion dollar peak. During that fight meow pledged that he and cofounder Siong Ong "do not and will not" vote their tokens, even after vesting.

On August 9, 2025 meow posted that he had made a "very, very bad mistake" by spending his energy pleasing and reassuring the community, and announced a pivot to three pillars: a DeFi superapp, a new studio, and the JupNet launch. He also disclosed that 99.99 percent of his net worth and life's work is in JUP, illiquid until 2030.

In early 2026, with JUP trading far below its highs, the Jupiter DAO voted to shrink and then indefinitely postpone further Jupuary distributions as part of a plan to cut net JUP emissions to zero, with unused tokens returned to a community controlled wallet. The February 15, 2026 vote that killed Jupuary also paused team vesting and offset Mercurial stakeholder sell pressure, part of the same plan to bring net new JUP emissions to zero for the year. Commentators described the January 2026 round as the final Jupuary of the original design.

## Style and significance

meow is known for extremely long, confessional posts about governance, token economics and community, and for engaging critics directly during drawdowns. Supporters credit him with building the most consequential retail facing DeFi product on Solana; critics have blamed Jupiter's large token unlocks for JUP price weakness, a debate meow has addressed publicly rather than avoided. Either way, most trades in the trenches, whether placed through wallets, bots or terminals, ultimately touch routing infrastructure his team built.

## References

- Unchained: https://unchainedcrypto.com/jupiter-founder-meow-to-critics-of-jup-airdrop-give-me-a-break/
- CoinGecko: https://www.coingecko.com/learn/what-is-jupiter-crypto-solana
- IQ.wiki: https://iq.wiki/wiki/meow
- CoinMarketCap: https://www.coinmarketcap.com/top-stories/69dafdda3b10291756db57cd/
- Cryptopolitan: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/jupiter-dao-vote-canceling-jupuary-airdrops/
- blockeden.xyz: https://blockeden.xyz/blog/2026/01/26/jupiter-jupuary-final-airdrop-jupusd-stablecoin-solana-defi/
- bankless.com: https://www.bankless.com/the-jup-airdrop-with-jupiter-founder-meow
- The Defiant: https://thedefiant.io/news/defi/jupiter-dao-pauses-voting-after-backlash-over-team-s-voting-power
- The Block: https://www.theblock.co/post/358988/dao-behind-dex-aggregator-jupiter-suspends-governance-votes-until-early-2026-amid-community-concerns
- Cryptopolitan: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/jupiter-co-founder-admits-very-bad-mistake/

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