Jito Staked SOL

JitoSOL: Solana's MEV-Enhanced Liquid Staking Token

Jito Staked SOL (jitoSOL) commands over 53% of Solana (SOL)'s liquid staking market, with approximately 17.6 million SOL locked in its stake pool.

At current prices, this represents a market capitalization exceeding $1.8 billion, making it the largest liquid staking token on Solana by a substantial margin.

The token functions as a receipt for staked SOL that appreciates relative to the underlying asset over time.

Unlike traditional staking, which renders assets illiquid during the staking period, jitoSOL remains freely transferable and usable across decentralized finance applications while still accruing staking rewards.

What distinguishes jitoSOL from competing liquid staking tokens is its integration of Maximal Extractable Value rewards into the staking yield.

This additional revenue stream, derived from transaction ordering optimization on Solana, has historically added 1-3% annually to standard staking returns, bringing total yields to approximately 7-8% APY.

The token has attracted significant institutional attention. In July 2025, Anchorage Digital—the only federally chartered crypto bank in the United States—began supporting jitoSOL mint and redemption operations. That same year, VanEck filed for the first spot Solana ETF backed entirely by a liquid staking token, using jitoSOL as its underlying asset.

From MEV Infrastructure to Liquid Staking

Jito Labs was founded in 2021 by Lucas Bruder and Zanyar Sherwani. Bruder, a Carnegie Mellon engineering graduate with prior experience at Tesla and robotics firms, recognized parallels between MEV dynamics on Ethereum and emerging inefficiencies on Solana's high-throughput chain.

The company's initial focus centered on MEV infrastructure rather than liquid staking. Bruder and his team developed the Jito-Solana validator client, a fork of the standard Solana client that introduced mechanisms for capturing and distributing MEV more efficiently.

By late 2022, Jito launched jitoSOL as a way to share MEV revenues with ordinary stakers who lacked the technical capacity to run validators themselves.

The insight was straightforward: if validators were generating additional revenue from transaction ordering, some portion of that value should flow back to the delegators whose stake made the validator's position possible.

The token arrived during a period when Solana's liquid staking penetration lagged far behind Ethereum's. While approximately 42% of staked ETH sat in liquid staking protocols, only around 6% of staked SOL did the same. This gap represented both a competitive opportunity and an educational challenge.

Jito's growth accelerated dramatically in late 2023, driven partly by a points program that rewarded users for holding and using jitoSOL across DeFi protocols.

By May 2024, Jito had become the largest protocol on Solana by total value locked, surpassing established names in lending and decentralized exchange categories.

How the Staking Mechanism Works

JitoSOL operates through a stake pool model built on Solana's SPL Stake Pool program. When users deposit SOL into the Jito Stake Pool, they receive jitoSOL tokens at an exchange rate that reflects accumulated rewards.

The exchange rate between jitoSOL and SOL increases steadily as staking rewards and MEV revenues compound. Rather than distributing rewards as separate payments, the protocol accrues yield directly into the jitoSOL price.

A holder who acquires jitoSOL today will find their tokens worth more SOL tomorrow, assuming the stake pool continues generating returns.

Stake delegation follows an automated system called StakeNet, which Jito developed to decentralize validator selection.

The program evaluates validators based on performance metrics over rolling epochs, automatically adjusting stake allocations toward higher-performing operators while maintaining constraints around network decentralization.

Validators must meet specific criteria to receive delegation from the Jito stake pool. They must run an MEV-enabled client with commission rates at or below 10%, cannot be part of the network's superminority, and must avoid unsafe consensus modifications. The top 200 qualifying validators receive stake, with pool churn limited to 7.5% per 10-epoch cycle to minimize yield disruption.

The Jito-Solana validator client itself runs on approximately 94% of Solana's staked weight.

This client introduces a parallel auction mechanism where users and applications bid "tips" for transaction inclusion guarantees, creating a secondary revenue stream that flows partially to stakers.

Token Economics and Value Accrual

JitoSOL has no maximum supply because new tokens are minted whenever users deposit SOL and burned whenever they withdraw. The circulating supply of approximately 11.5 million jitoSOL reflects current deposits into the stake pool.

Fee structures remain relatively simple.

The protocol charges withdrawal fees and management fees that flow to fee collectors, though these represent a small fraction of overall returns. DeFi Llama data indicates that jitoSOL holders do not currently receive revenue shares from the separate JTO governance token.

The TipRouter Node Consensus Network, which launched in January 2025, introduced a new dimension to jitoSOL economics. Under this system, 6% of MEV tips flow to various stakeholders: 5.7% to the Jito DAO treasury, with 0.15% each going to jitoSOL and JTO stakers.

Based on Q4 2024 tip volume, which exceeded $14.7 million on peak days, annual distributions to jitoSOL restakers could reach several million dollars.

These flows represent real economic value from Solana blockspace demand rather than token inflation.

The restaking framework allows jitoSOL holders to deposit their tokens into vaults that secure Node Consensus Networks, earning additional yield beyond base staking returns. Jito restaking accounts for approximately 1.56 million SOL across protocols including Fragmetric, Renzo, and Kyros.

DeFi Integration and Utility

Approximately 40% of jitoSOL supply sits deployed as collateral or liquidity across Solana's DeFi ecosystem. The remaining 60% resides in user wallets, held either as a yield-bearing asset or awaiting deployment.

Kamino Finance holds the largest jitoSOL position among DeFi protocols, with nearly one million tokens across automated liquidity vaults.

The jitoSOL-SOL vault on Kamino represents the largest liquidity vault on the platform, allowing depositors to earn trading fees while maintaining exposure to staking yield.

Lending protocols accept jitoSOL as collateral for borrowing stablecoins or other assets. MarginFi, Solend, and Kamino Lend all support jitoSOL deposits with competitive loan-to-value ratios, enabling users to unlock liquidity without selling their staked position.

Decentralized exchanges including Orca, Raydium, and Meteora offer jitoSOL trading pairs and liquidity pools.

The jitoSOL/SOL pair on Orca maintains approximately $30 million in locked liquidity, providing swap infrastructure for users entering or exiting positions.

Drift Protocol holds over 392,000 jitoSOL across just two accounts, suggesting institutional or protocol-level usage for perpetual futures collateral.

This concentration pattern appears across several platforms where large holders deploy substantial jitoSOL positions.

Institutional Adoption and ETF Developments

The Jito Foundation's collaboration with Anchorage Digital marked a watershed moment for institutional access. Through Anchorage Digital Bank N.A. and Anchorage Digital Singapore, regulated entities can now custody, mint, and redeem jitoSOL with compliance infrastructure comparable to traditional asset custody.

VanEck's August 2025 S-1 filing for a jitoSOL-backed ETF represented the first attempt to bring staking-enabled Solana exposure to regulated markets.

The filing followed SEC staff statements in May and August 2025 clarifying that protocol staking and liquid staking do not constitute securities transactions under specific conditions.

FalconX, an institutional digital asset prime brokerage, began accepting jitoSOL as collateral in February 2025. This integration allows institutional traders to use jitoSOL for various trading activities while continuing to earn staking rewards.

Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm invested $50 million in Jito through a private token sale in October 2025, providing capital for infrastructure expansion and MEV capability enhancement.

The investment signaled institutional confidence in Jito's positioning within Solana's infrastructure stack.

Institutional interest in jitoSOL reflects broader recognition that liquid staking tokens offer capital efficiency advantages. Asset managers holding jitoSOL can capture approximately 7% APY staking yield on top of any basis trading returns, outperforming equivalent strategies on Ethereum where staking yields sit around 3-4%.

Regulatory Positioning and Legal Arguments

In March 2025, the Jito Foundation released a 24-page Securities Classification Report asserting that jitoSOL does not constitute a security under U.S. federal securities laws. The report applied the Howey and Reves tests to demonstrate that jitoSOL transactions function as decentralized technological utilities rather than investment contracts.

The legal analysis emphasized several key points: jitoSOL operates independently on a blockchain without reliance on Jito Labs' managerial efforts, rewards derive from protocol mechanics rather than promoter activities, and users retain custody of their assets through non-custodial smart contracts.

Rebecca Rettig, Jito Labs' legal counsel, characterized jitoSOL as "pure technology," arguing that the token represents a technological utility for accessing Solana's staking infrastructure rather than an investment in a common enterprise.

SEC staff statements in 2025 provided favorable clarity for liquid staking generally.

The guidance indicated that when structured appropriately, liquid staking does not involve the offer and sale of securities, removing a significant regulatory overhang that had constrained institutional adoption.

The SEC has not accused Jito of any legal violations, and the Foundation's proactive disclosure aimed to establish precedents that could benefit the broader liquid staking sector. Whether these arguments would survive litigation remains untested.

The Mempool Shutdown and MEV Controversy

Jito's relationship with MEV has not been without controversy. In March 2024, Jito Labs suspended its mempool functionality after an increase in sandwich attacks harmed retail users on Solana.

The Jito Block Engine had introduced an out-of-protocol mempool where transactions awaited confirmation, giving searchers a 200-millisecond window to preview incoming transactions.

Sophisticated actors exploited this visibility to front-run and sandwich trades, extracting value from ordinary users.

A particularly notable incident in January 2024 saw an MEV bot pocket $1.8 million in seconds by back-running a trader attempting to acquire the memecoin dogwifhat. Such extractions reached fever pitch during the memecoin mania, with daily MEV tips exceeding 10,000 SOL on March 8, 2024.

Lucas Bruder acknowledged that the team had attempted engineering solutions to reject sandwich bundles, but the approaches became "a cat-and-mouse game with MEV searchers."

The mempool shutdown represented a significant revenue sacrifice, as Jito kept 5% of all searcher tips.

Alternative mempools have since emerged that lack Jito's transparency, benefiting select participants with exclusive access. Internal Jito analysis indicates that nearly half of all sandwich attacks on Solana now originate from a single program operating through these alternative channels.

Competitive Landscape and Market Dynamics

JitoSOL's 53% market share dwarfs its nearest competitor. Binance's bnSOL holds approximately 8.16 million SOL in second place, while Marinade's mSOL—once the dominant liquid staking token on Solana—has fallen to roughly 5.28 million SOL.

Marinade's market share declined from approximately 60% to around 20% as jitoSOL gained traction.

The shift reflected both Jito's MEV yield advantage and its aggressive DeFi integration strategy, which created liquidity flywheels that reinforced jitoSOL's position.

Jupiter's jupSOL represents a different competitive model—a single-validator liquid staking token that benefits from Jupiter's massive aggregator traffic. With approximately 3.88 million SOL, jupSOL has captured meaningful share by leveraging existing user relationships rather than MEV infrastructure.

Sanctum's Infinity token offers diversified exposure across multiple LSTs, capturing both staking yields and trading fees from its liquidity pool.

This meta-LST approach provides automatic rebalancing but relies on constituent LST strategies rather than direct validator relationships.

Critics argue that liquid staking's centralization around dominant providers creates systemic risk.

While Jito's StakeNet protocol attempts to distribute stake across 200+ validators, the concentration of liquid staking market share in a single protocol raises questions about network resilience.

Technical and Economic Risks

Smart contract risk remains inherent to any liquid staking protocol. JitoSOL's stake pool relies on the SPL Stake Pool program, which has operated without major exploit but shares vulnerability classes common to all DeFi infrastructure. A bug or exploit in the staking contracts could impact user funds or peg stability.

Liquidity limitations can emerge during market stress. While jitoSOL maintains deep liquidity under normal conditions, rapid deleveraging events could cause the token to trade below its theoretical SOL value.

Native staking carries an unbonding period of approximately 2-3 days, and this constraint ultimately backs all liquid staking derivative liquidity.

Stacked protocol exposure compounds risk for users deploying jitoSOL across multiple DeFi applications. A jitoSOL holder who deposits into a Kamino vault, borrows against that position on MarginFi, and redeploys the borrowed assets faces cascading liquidation risk across multiple smart contract systems.

Solana network reliability remains a factor.

While the network maintained 100% uptime through 2025, earlier outages had disrupted both staking operations and DeFi activity. Any extended network downtime would freeze jitoSOL redemptions and could trigger secondary market dislocations.

Validator underperformance affects returns even without slashing events. If validators in the Jito stake pool frequently miss blocks or operate inefficiently, staking rewards diminish. The StakeNet program attempts to mitigate this through automated performance-based delegation, but validator quality remains variable.

Infrastructure Evolution and Protocol Development

The TipRouter NCN represents Jito's most significant infrastructure evolution since the jitoSOL launch. By decentralizing MEV tip distribution through a Node Consensus Network, Jito shifted from a permissioned distribution model to transparent, verifiable consensus on reward allocation.

Under the new architecture, node operators reach consensus on Merkle roots that determine tip distribution.

Economic security from restaked jitoSOL and JTO underpins the network, with operators receiving rewards for honest participation and facing potential slashing for malicious behavior.

The restaking framework enables protocols to launch Node Consensus Networks that leverage Solana's existing staking infrastructure for economic security. This approach mirrors EigenLayer's model on Ethereum, where restaked assets secure actively validated services beyond the base layer.

Jito's Block Assembly Marketplace aims to improve transaction execution and reduce harmful MEV.

The marketplace generates approximately $3.6 million in daily tips as of 2025, demonstrating sustained demand for Solana blockspace optimization.

Future development priorities include expanding the NCN ecosystem to support diverse use cases beyond tip distribution. Oracle networks, cross-chain bridges, and other infrastructure requiring economic security could build on Jito's restaking platform, creating new demand for jitoSOL as the primary collateral asset.

What Determines Continued Relevance

JitoSOL's future trajectory depends on several factors beyond its current market position. Solana's overall growth directly affects the value proposition—if Solana loses relevance to competing Layer 1s or Layer 2 ecosystems, jitoSOL's utility diminishes regardless of protocol execution.

MEV dynamics on Solana remain unpredictable.

The mempool shutdown demonstrated that MEV infrastructure evolves in response to both technical and social pressures. Future changes to Solana's transaction processing or fee markets could alter the economics that currently favor jitoSOL's yield enhancement.

Regulatory clarity, while improving, remains incomplete.

The SEC staff statements provided helpful guidance, but formal rulemaking has not occurred. Changes in administration or enforcement priorities could introduce new uncertainty around liquid staking's treatment under securities laws.

Competition from exchange-backed LSTs and novel yield optimization protocols could erode jitoSOL's market share. Binance's bnSOL grew rapidly through centralized distribution channels, and additional exchange entrants could follow.

The ETF approval process represents both opportunity and risk.

Successful launch of a jitoSOL-backed ETF would channel significant capital into the protocol, but regulatory rejection could set negative precedents for the entire liquid staking sector.

JitoSOL has established itself as critical infrastructure within Solana's ecosystem. Its dominance in liquid staking, deep DeFi integration, and MEV revenue sharing have created network effects that competitors struggle to replicate. Whether that position proves durable depends on execution in an environment where both technology and regulation continue to evolve.