Jito’s JTO soars hours into airdrop, analysts say altcoin rally has steam left 

After an explosive week for bitcoin, traders turned their attention to JTO, Solana-based Jito’s new governance token, which gained as much as 75% upon its launch Thursday.

Jito, a staking project built on Solana, released its JTO token at 11 am ET Thursday. By 11:45 am ET, around 30% of the airdrop had been claimed, and none of the top 14 claiming addresses by size had sold.

Eligible recipients have 18 months to collect their assets, making the claim window unusually large for an airdropped token. Typical windows tend to give users 30 to 90 days to make their claims.

JTO’s market capitalization at time of publication was around $211 million.

Decentralized exchange Aevo practically crashed after a surge of futures market activity around the time of the airdrop. Coinbase and Binance also announced plans to list the token.

JTO’s launch comes as altcoins continue to soar this year. Solana’s native token (SOL) is up more than 550% year-to-date. Polygon (MATIC) and Chainlink (LINK), which both posted rallies last month, still each maintained around a 16% gain over the month Thursday.

Bitcoin (BTC) pulled back Thursday to around $43,100, after surpassing $44,000 earlier in the week. Ether (ETH) on the other hand extended its rally Thursday, gaining an additional 4.2% over the past 24 hours.

Altcoin market share of total crypto trade volume surged to 67% last week, its highest level since March 2022, analysts from crypto research firm Kaiko found.

“Daily altcoin trade volume spiked above $20 billion in early November for the first time since April 2023,” Kaiko analysts added. “While altcoin volumes continue to be driven by offshore markets, Binance’s influence has shrunk, with its market share of global altcoin volume dropping to 46% last week, down from 60% in September 2022.”

It’s not just crypto-native traders taking an interest in altcoins, either. Exchange-traded products (ETPs) holding Solana increased 99% in assets under management last month, according to research from crypto investment firm Fineqia.

“This follows the 172% growth recorded in October,” Fineqia analysts added. “In the last two months, ETPs holding SOL as underlying [assets] increased by 443%, representing 77% of the altcoins index assets under management growth.”