I’ve been following both this thread and the related discussion here: Flawed Governance – Jupiter DAO, and I think it’s time we look at the bigger picture.
The issue isn’t whether team members can vote — technically, yes, they can. The issue is what kind of voting power they’re using, how it’s been accumulated, and what that means for the rest of us.
From what’s been discussed, it seems that many team members — especially cofounders and early contributors — are voting using large allocations of JUP that were received as free team compensation. These are not tokens bought from the market like the rest of us. These were given for past or ongoing work, often in large chunks, and sometimes staked shortly after receiving them.
This creates two problems:
- Influence Concentration — When the team both proposes initiatives and has enough stake to guarantee their passage, it undermines the idea of community governance.
- Misalignment of Risk — Those who received JUP for free don’t experience the same downside as those who bought in. Yet they’re shaping decisions that directly affect the token’s direction and value.
This structure is becoming more obvious in how governance plays out. For example, in the Flawed Governance thread, many users are starting to question whether the DAO has any real control, or whether it’s just a layer of branding on top of centralized decision-making.
And when the only power community holders have is voting on how to fund marketing and content creation — while real product, treasury, and strategy decisions remain internal — it’s hard not to ask: What is JUP actually for?
If we’re honest, JUP is starting to look less like a governance token and more like a rewards mechanism for select groups, while the rest of the holders — especially long-term believers — are left wondering if they misunderstood the game.
So yes, team members can vote. But if they’re voting on their own pay, staking with insider allocations, and holding majority influence, then let’s stop pretending this is “community-led” - it is not.