Revisiting the Jupiter Acquisition Timeline: From DEX to Infrastructure Maniac

Original Article Title: "Retrospect on Jupiter's Acquisition Timeline: From DEX to Infrastructure Fanatic's Ambition"

Original Source: Deep Dive TechFlow

Amidst the turmoil of the cryptocurrency market, projects in the Solana ecosystem are shining brightly.

For example, Jupiter. When you recently received airdropped tokens and happily exclaimed how delicious the gains were, did you also catch a glimpse of Jupiter's aura of wealth and power?

Sometimes a project's generosity towards you stems from its extensive network and careful planning behind the scenes.

Jupiter, the hottest DEX protocol in the Solana ecosystem, has quietly embarked on a wave of acquisitions in the past 1-2 years, incorporating multiple projects into its portfolio.

For example, a recent and notable piece of news is that Jupiter has acquired a majority stake in Moonshot.

But its actions extend far beyond this. Through a series of strategic acquisitions, Jupiter is weaving a network that spans trading, data, wallets, and other dimensions of the ecosystem.

From initially focusing on token swaps as a DEX aggregator, to now a comprehensive ecosystem infrastructure, Jupiter's ambition has far surpassed a simple decentralized trading scope.

Why has this DEX that was once focused on providing the best slippage suddenly transformed into an "infrastructure fanatic"?

Deep Dive TechFlow has traced Jupiter's development and acquisition timeline, and combined with its recent partnership dynamics, attempts to reconstruct the strategic layout behind these scattered acquisitions.

Starting from DEX: Jupiter's Origin

In the thriving Solana ecosystem of 2021, a project called Jupiter quietly emerged. Initially, it was just a new face among many DEX aggregators, but its innate technological DNA quickly set it apart in the fiercely competitive DeFi race.

Jupiter's first breakthrough was addressing a common pain point in the DeFi world: slippage. Through an innovative routing algorithm, Jupiter is able to find the optimal trading path in complex liquidity pools, saving users significant transaction costs.

The project's development speed is remarkable. By 2023, publicly available data shows that it has become the largest DEX aggregator in the Solana ecosystem, occupying over 50% of on-chain token swap volume.

The sleek interface design, convenient cross-chain support, and precise understanding of institutional-grade trading needs have quickly made Jupiter the platform of choice for professional players.

But what truly sets Jupiter apart in the competition is perhaps their forward-thinking approach to ecosystem development.

In today's highly competitive and homogenized cryptocurrency landscape, you can clearly feel:

A successful DEX must not only provide high-quality trading services but also become a hub that connects the entire ecosystem.

Thus, Jupiter's acquisition saga begins.

Acquisition in Progress: Expansion of Infrastructure Blueprint

Jupiter's founder Meow previously stated in a podcast interview, "Our vision is not just to do a good DEX, but to build a complete DeFi infrastructure ecosystem."

So, what else does a complete ecosystem need?

If I were a user, the answer would be obvious --- it's best to have everything in one place to support all my DeFi activities, from data analysis to trade execution, and asset management, forming a closed loop.

Of course, these things cannot be accomplished by a single DEX. Hence, acquisitions and partnerships have become a viable path.

Looking at some of Jupiter's recent acquisition moves together, everything revolves around this closed loop.

Data Infrastructure: Acquisitions of SolanaFM, Sonarwatch, and Coinhall

Before users engage in trading, accurate market data, on-chain activity analysis, and real-time price monitoring are needed to assist decision-making. Perhaps based on such strategic considerations, Jupiter has embarked on the layout of its data segment in the past 2 years.

· September 2024: Acquisition of the blockchain explorer SolanaFM

SolanaFM, previously known as one of the more distinctive blockchain explorers in the Solana ecosystem, provided users with fast, simple, and user-friendly on-chain data access capabilities. Its most significant impact was the simplification of transaction information and the reduction of the complexity of fund flow visualization.

As early as 22, SolanaFM had already completed a $4.5 million seed funding round, with participation from VC firms such as Spartan Group; publicly available data also shows that Jupiter itself was one of the project's investors, laying the groundwork for a future acquisition.

This acquisition not only enhanced Jupiter's data analysis capabilities but also provided users with a more transparent on-chain activity tracking service. In addition to a mature data analysis engine, the most important aspect was gaining a technologically experienced team in on-chain data processing.

· September 2024: Acquisition of analytics platform Coinhall

At the 2024 Solana Breakpoint Conference, Jupiter announced the acquisition of the well-known transaction analytics platform Coinhall. As a platform focused on transaction data analysis, Coinhall is renowned for its powerful market data analysis capabilities and user-friendly interface, providing traders with real-time market trends, price movements, and trade volume analysis.

This acquisition is of strategic importance to Jupiter: firstly, by integrating Coinhall's analytics tools, Jupiter significantly enhances its market data analysis capabilities; additionally, Coinhall's one-click trading feature and intuitive data visualization tools will be fully integrated into Jupiter's trading platform, further optimizing users' trading experience.

· January 2025: Acquisition of on-chain portfolio tracker Sonarwatch

Just yesterday (25th), the Jupiter DAO Twitter account announced this acquisition.

From a business perspective, the integration with Sonarwatch clearly strengthens Jupiter's portfolio tracking function. Sonarwatch's portfolio tracking tool will be fully integrated into Jupiter's web and mobile platforms, providing users with comprehensive asset monitoring services.

The significance of this collaboration is that it complements Jupiter's shortcomings in real-time market monitoring.

It is worth noting that SonarWatch positions itself as a "multi-chain" open-source tracking tool, facilitating DeFi adoption on different chains. This business positioning may align with Jupiter's recent announcement of the Omnichain Network --- Jupnet.

Transaction Infrastructure Expansion: Acquisition of Ultimate Wallet and Moonshot Equity

In the DeFi ecosystem, transaction infrastructure is a key link connecting users to trading platforms.

As a DEX aggregator, Jupiter must also bridge the gap from user entry to trade execution, prompting it to embark on a series of strategic moves at the infrastructure level.

· April 2024: Acquisition of Ultimate Wallet, launching the Jupiter Mobile initiative

When Jupiter acquired the wallet last year, Jupite already indicated that its "mobile plan attracting tens of millions of users is launching" and will be "ready for testing in May."

Turning to the mobile side, the idea of having its own frontend app emerged.

Previously, Jupiter also stated that acquiring Ultimate Wallet aligns with its mobile strategy and will use their technology and team to enhance Jupiter Mobile's performance.

While wallets like Phantom wallet are commonly used dApp wallets, a DEX can evidently build its own frontend transaction capability to control user entry points and seek more traffic and trading revenue.

· January 2025: Acquisition of the majority of Moonshot's equity

In recent days, Jupiter has further expanded its ecosystem by acquiring the majority of the equity of Moonshot, seen by many as "Meme Curated" amid the craze for meme coins.

The value of Moonshot itself does not need much introduction. This Meme trading platform, launched in July 2024, set a record of nearly $400 million in trading volume when Trump coin was released earlier this month, and topped the regional APP download chart.

More importantly, it provides a fiat on-ramp for direct purchase of Meme, a feature that is hard to resist for projects in the trading industry.

Acquiring a majority stake in Moonshot also means strengthening control over Moonshot. Through the acquisition of Moonshot, Jupiter is not only an aggregator but also has control over some of the underlying liquidity sources.

Other Collaboration Layouts

In addition to the above-mentioned acquisition, projects related to Jupiter also involve Meteora and PumpAI.

· Revenue Optimization: Synergistic Development with Meteora

Meteora, as an important infrastructure in the Solana ecosystem, has a close but independent relationship with Jupiter. As a project that transitioned from the original Mercurial team, Meteora's development in the ecosystem is remarkable.

Its TVL hit a new high of $1.3 billion in January 2024, once becoming the largest DEX by daily trading volume in the ecosystem. This rapid growth is due to its innovative liquidity management mechanism and close collaboration with Jupiter.

As a project developed by the original Jupiter team, Meteora focuses on building a sustainable revenue layer for the Solana ecosystem. Through integration with Jupiter, users can earn additional rewards while trading, significantly improving capital efficiency. It is worth noting that this collaborative model has been validated in recent market hotspots—such as in the official Trump coin trading on TRUMP, where the combination of Jupiter and Meteora provided users with the optimal trading experience.

· Innovative Ecosystem: Strategic Cooperation with PumpAI

Furthermore, PumpAI is an AI launchpad on Meteora that uses tools to help users create tokens. Descriptions, images, tokens, and pools will all be handled by artificial intelligence.

The project has established liquidity pool partnerships with other protocols such as Raydium and Jupiter.

Where is the Endgame?

Jupiter's recent series of acquisitions have outlined a grand vision far beyond a single DEX platform.

Through an in-depth analysis of its acquisition strategy, we can clearly see that this star project in the Solana ecosystem is playing the next game: from a singular point to a ubiquitous ecosystem layout.

Jupiter's acquisition roadmap spans across multiple strategic areas. From the user entry point of Ultimate Wallet, to the data analytics tool Coinhall, and to the blockchain explorer SolanaFM, each acquisition is filling a crucial piece of the ecosystem puzzle.

Especially through acquiring a majority stake in Moonshot, Jupiter has not only strengthened its advantage in the liquidity aggregation field but has also built a complete DeFi service loop.

By integrating core infrastructure such as wallets, data, and transactions, Jupiter is building a self-sufficient collection of DeFi services. Users can complete the entire process from deposits, trades, to yield optimization within this ecosystem, where convenience may be the key to competitive success.

Of particular note is Jupiter's ongoing Jupnet project (a full-chain network), which showcases its continuous investment in technological innovation. This is not only a complement to its existing business but also a forward-looking layout for the future cross-chain DeFi development.

Looking ahead, Jupiter's ambition may not stop here.

Its foray into fiat gateways and launchpad businesses indicates its goal to create an ecosystem covering the entire project lifecycle. From project incubation, trading liquidity to user services, Jupiter is gradually solidifying its position as the "Infrastructure Maniac" of the Solana ecosystem through this series of strategic deployments.

Original Article Link