--- title: "Shaping the Future with Jupiter Governance" publishedAt: '2026-04-22' tryUrl: 'https://vote.jup.ag' badges: - Beginner - Product hiddenBadges: - Governance - DAO - JUP - Staking --- ## Shaping the Future with Jupiter Governance In traditional finance, shareholders of a public company have the right to vote on major decisions at an Annual General Meeting. But voting participation requires going through brokers or other third-parties, and practically speaking, most retail shareholders never vote at all. Jupiter DAO Governance removes every layer of that friction. Launched in 2024, it gave the community a direct right to express itself and shape the future of Jupiter - big issues like treasury allocations & tokenomics changes. No intermediaries or brokers, just your wallet and your stake. Not only does Jupiter ship products, they shipped a whole new paradigm around decentralized financial governance. ### What is a DAO? DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Rather than being governed by a board of directors or a management team operating behind closed doors, a DAO is governed by its community through smart contracts on the blockchain. Its features are literally derived from its name: * **Decentralized:** By utilizing the blockchain to gather votes, it provides global access to anyone with the correct stake in Jupiter to participate. This swiftly eliminates the need for any intermediaries or other barriers. * **Autonomous:** All votes are automatically run and tallied via smart contracts, with every vote recorded on-chain and transparent to anyone. ### The Jupiter DAO The Jupiter DAO is the governance layer of the entire Jupiter ecosystem. The aim is clear: to level up passive token holders into active participants with a real stake in the protocol's direction, allow them to participate in decision-making, and shift Jupiter towards a global collaboration. Past votes have included: - A 30% reduction in the total supply of the JUP token - A strategic partnership with Huma Finance - The allocation of the DAO's operating budget These are not opinion polls from the community, but rather, binding on-chain decisions that directly affect how Jupiter operates. ![DAO Proposals](https://static.academy.jup.ag/images/illustrations/dao_proposals.avif) ### Voting Power: Staking Your JUP To gain voting power, you will need to obtain and stake your JUP tokens. ![DAO Voting](https://static.academy.jup.ag/images/illustrations/dao_voting.avif) Your voting power is proportional to your share of staked tokens in the entire DAO pool. The higher the percentage of your JUP tokens in the stake pool, the more your voice counts. * **Non-Custodial:** Your tokens remain yours. Staked JUP is locked in a smart contract that you control and not held by a third party. * **Unstaking & Cool-Down Period:** You can unstake at any time, but a 7-day cool-down period applies before your tokens are returned to your wallet. This is to prevent members from gaming the voting system. Additionally, your voting power does decrease during unstaking. For partial unstakes, voting power instantly decreases proportionally; for full unstakes, it decreases linearly over 7 days. ### Active Staking Rewards While you help Jupiter shape the future of on-chain finance, there's the added bonus of getting rewarded via the Active Staking Rewards (ASR)! Created alongside the Jupiter DAO, the ASR is a quarterly incentive program that distributes JUP tokens to stakers who actively participate in DAO votes. The Jupiter team allocates a total yearly budget of 200 million JUP tokens, and distributes 50 million tokens every quarter. * **Eligibility:** Rewards are calculated based on your voting power relative to the total staked supply at the time of the vote. Staking is enough - you do not need to actively vote to qualify. * **Claiming:** At the end of each quarter, your rewards become claimable from the DAO dashboard. You have until the end of the following quarter to claim them. * **Unclaimed Rewards:** If you do not claim before that deadline, the unclaimed JUP is returned to the community treasury to fund the next ASR cycle. Your estimated annualized return is visible directly on the staking page, so you can evaluate the yield before committing. ### JUP Research As you might expect, Jupiter Governance is one of the biggest DAOs on Solana. Each and every vote is impactful and causes ripples of excitement within the community. To help gather all the conversations into a dedicated space, Jupiter created the JUP Research platform. ![JUP Research](https://static.academy.jup.ag/images/illustrations/dao_research.avif) There, the community and dev team can propose early drafts of votes, collect preliminary feedback, and adjust the plan accordingly. It's a space to let members of the DAO express themselves early, or even provide fresh ideas for the next vote on Jupiter's plan. --- ### How Do You Join? **Step 1: Navigate to the Governance Portal** Go to [vote.jup.ag](https://vote.jup.ag) and connect your Solana wallet. **Step 2: Stake Your JUP** Click "Stake JUP" on the main page. Enter the amount you wish to stake and approve the transaction in your wallet. Your voting power is now active. **Step 3: Browse and Vote on Active Proposals** From the governance dashboard, you can see all currently active votes. Review each proposal, read the associated JUP Research discussion if available, and cast your vote on-chain. **Step 4: Claim Your ASR Rewards** At the end of each quarter, return to the dashboard to claim your ASR allocation. Remember: unclaimed rewards expire at the end of the following quarter. Congrats! You are now a certified JUP staker and are ready to participate in the governance of on-chain finance!