Jito JTO$0.355-4.7% has named the first outside companies that will run nodes for BAM (Block Assembly Marketplace), its block-building network on Solana SOL$91.77-2.6%. RPC provider Triton One, asset manager Bitwise and validator company SOL Strategies form the first cohort of third-party BAM node operators, Jito announced on X on 2 November 2026. Until now, Jito ran every BAM node itself.
What Jito announced for third-party BAM node operators
"Decentralizing block building means BAM Nodes run by operators outside of Jito," Jito wrote, pointing readers to a longer post on the onboarding phases and "the path to full mainnet."
The three operators start on testnet. The Defiant reported that Triton One, Bitwise and SOL Strategies "begin with testnet onboarding" and that access for any mainnet validator "is targeted for early Q1 2027". ChainCatcher reported the same early Q1 2027 target. Jito's own 9 October changelog had already said an early cohort of third-party operators was being onboarded to BAM testnet, "with the goal of coming online in the coming weeks."
Why outside operators matter for Solana block building
Block building decides which transactions make it into a Solana block and in what order. BAM, short for Block Assembly Marketplace, does that work inside trusted execution environments (TEEs), sealed hardware that keeps transactions private until they execute. Validators that opt into BAM rely on those nodes to order their blocks, so today every BAM-built block depends on one operator. Bitwise noted that Jito has run every BAM node so far and called the new cohort "a big step toward decentralizing block building on Solana."
The share of Solana that depends on those nodes is large. Jito's 9 October changelog put BAM at 164 million SOL across 385 connected validators, 37% of total network stake, as of epoch 1050 in early October.
What to watch before BAM opens to any mainnet validator
Outside operators running sealed hardware raise the question of how validators check what that hardware is doing. Jito's BAM attestations design, published in September, sets out how validators can verify BAM's transaction ordering, and its rollout is the thing to track as BAM nodes leave Jito's hands.
The Alpenglow upgrade sets the calendar. The same Jito changelog said all mainnet BAM nodes will be placed in Maintenance Mode in the days before Alpenglow activates, with BAM features such as Direct Bundle Ingest unavailable during that period, as we covered on 10 October. How the new operators' move from testnet to mainnet fits around that window, and whether the early Q1 2027 target holds, are the next dates to check.
