The Solana DeFi universe is exponentially expanding, with new tokens and protocols popping up every other day. But, how does one go swiftly from token A to token Z? Well, that is where the Jupiter token swap aggregator comes in.
In this article, we are going to give you a quick and easy tutorial on how you can make swaps or trades on the Solana blockchain using Jupiter, which aggregates liquidity from different decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and gives you the best price on every swap that you make.
What Is Jupiter?
Launched in October 2021, Jupiter is a token swap aggregator that finds the cheapest swap routes among the widest token pairs available for Solana users.
Like flight aggregators, Jupiter finds the cheapest token swap routes possible out of a combination of liquidity sources. These liquidity sources include different DEXs, Automated Market Makers (AMMs), order books and so on.
Thanks to the Solana blockchain’s cheap and fast transactions, liquidity can be tapped from multiple sources fast, without changing the total user wait-time or final cost.
Read: Solana Destroys Ethereum In Total Trading Volume – Details
Jupiter Airdrop
The highly awaited Jupiter airdrop in January, 2024 will be exclusive to the wallets that interacted with the DeFi platform before November 2nd, 2023.
The Jupiter team plans to initiate the airdrops in four phases. In the first stage, almost a million wallets on Solana will receive a total of 1 billion JUP tokens.
Here are the components for the airdrop:
- 40% – Community growth (4 phases)
- 20% – Token sales (Locked)
- 40% – Team & Strategic Reserve (Vested)
So, basically if you have been out there drudging through this bear market and you have been a believer in Solana or DeFi in general, it is likely that you are going to be able to benefit from some of these said airdrops. The Jupiter team is kind of going after the organic users to stimulate community growth and kickstart the markets as a whole.
Read: Top 10 Solana Airdrops To Keep An Eye On In 2024
How To Use Jupiter – Tutorial
1. Download A Solana-Based Wallet
Before you can trade different Solana-based tokens on Jupiter, you are going to need to have some SOL in a Solana wallet. For this tutorial, we will be using the most popular Solana wallet today, Phantom.
Go to Phantom.app and then download the application for your web browser. In this case, I am using Brave, but you could also use this for Chrome or any of the other web browsers out there. You can also download it on your mobile phones whether it is Android or iOS.
2. Wallet Setup
If you already have a seed phrase that you want to import from an existing wallet, you can do that. For this tutorial, let us create a new wallet.
You will be asked to put in a password for your wallet. Then click the box icon that you agree to the Terms of Service, and click “Continue”.
The wallet is going to provide you with a 12-word secret recovery phrase that you are going to want to write down somewhere safe; where no one has access to them. This is going to be what is going to allow you to recover your wallet in case you are migrating to a new device, etcetera. Otherwise, you cannot access your assets.
Once you have done that, you are all ready to go. So, we can go ahead and start transferring some SOL.
3. Buying/Transferring Solana
In this wallet, you are going to have to make sure that you have Solana since we are interacting in its ecosystem.
To do that, You are going to have to go to a cryptocurrency exchange and buy SOL. If you already have SOL, then you just need to transfer it to your Phantom wallet.
Make sure that you are copying and pasting the correct address — if you send it to the wrong blockchain/address, your funds will be lost.
4. Start Swapping On Jupiter
Now that our Phantom wallet is set up and ready to go, head on over to Jupiter and connect your Phantom wallet to the DApp.
Once you are connected, it will show you how much you have in terms of assets and the transaction history.
So, this is the simple swap feature of Jupiter, and you can choose what token you are swapping from at the top, and what token you are swapping to at the bottom.
Once you have chosen what you want to swap from and to, select the amount you want to swap. And right above the “Swap” button, it shows you the process of how these orders are going to be routed.
Anyways, you can pretty much be sure that when you use Jupiter to swap, you will be getting the best price on your transactions.
Once you have finalized your order, click “Swap” and confirm the transaction.
Note: Everytime you make a swap or any transaction on the Solana blockchain, you need to pay a small amount in gas fees. So, you are going to need to have some SOL tokens to pay for that.
Final Thoughts
Crypto is a volatile world where prices can jump or dive from one second to the next, and where new tokens are created everyday. So it is very useful to have a DeFi aggregator like Jupiter that stays on top of developments and does all the hard work for you.