Jito

Jito is a Solana-native protocol built around MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) infrastructure and liquid staking. It operates through two related entities: Jito Labs, the for-profit software company that develops and maintains the validator client and block engine, and the Jito Foundation, which governs the protocol and treasury through the JTO DAO. Lucas Bruder is CEO of Jito Labs. The project was founded in 2021.

Core Products

jitoSOL (Liquid Staking)

jitoSOL is Jito's liquid staking token on Solana. When a user deposits SOL into the Jito stake pool, they receive jitoSOL — an SPL token that accrues both base Solana staking rewards and a share of MEV tip revenue collected by validators in the pool. As of early 2026, the pool holds approximately 14.5 million SOL with roughly $2.92 billion in total value locked. jitoSOL yields approximately 7.2–7.8% APY, compared to the native Solana staking baseline of 5.9–6.6%, with the gap representing MEV tip pass-through and auto-compounding. The pool delegates to more than 200 validators. Because jitoSOL is a standard SPL token, holders can deploy it across Solana DeFi — as collateral on lending protocols or liquidity in decentralized exchanges — while continuing to earn staking rewards.

Jito-Solana Validator Client

Jito Labs maintains a modified version of the Solana validator client. Validators who run this client are able to receive and process transaction bundles submitted through Jito's Block Engine, collecting MEV tips on top of standard block rewards. As of early 2026, approximately 94–95% of Solana validators by stake run a Jito-compatible client, making MEV tip capture a structural feature of Solana block production rather than an opt-in edge case.

Block Engine

The Block Engine is Jito's MEV auction marketplace. Searchers — traders and arbitrageurs running automated strategies — submit transaction bundles alongside tip payments. The Block Engine auctions bundle placement within validator blocks, enabling searchers to guarantee atomicity for multi-step trades while validators earn the resulting tips. Jito charges a 6% fee on MEV rewards captured through the Block Engine. Following governance proposal JIP-24 in August 2025, 100% of that fee flows to the DAO treasury, removing the previous arrangement where Jito Labs received a portion.

BAM (Block Assembly Marketplace)

In July 2025, Jito launched BAM, a decentralized block assembly marketplace representing a significant architectural expansion. BAM introduces a layer of specialized nodes that sit between searchers and validators. These BAM nodes run inside Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) — hardware-backed secure enclaves that isolate computation from the host operating system — where they privately receive, simulate, and rank transactions before ordering them into blocks. The result is an immutable audit trail of cryptographic attestations proving transactions were ordered correctly. BAM also exposes a plugin interface, allowing developers to build custom transaction logic and create new revenue-sharing arrangements with validators. Launch validators for BAM include Figment, Helius, SOL Strategies, and Triton One. The TEE approach introduces hardware trust assumptions — including single-vendor concentration risk if most BAM nodes run the same chipmaker's enclaves — which Jito has flagged as a known tradeoff. Jito plans to progressively open-source the BAM software and expand from a permissioned to a permissionless validator set over time.

Additional Infrastructure

ShredStream is a low-latency data feed that gives MEV searchers faster access to incoming transaction data, improving their ability to respond to on-chain events. Jito Explorer is a network analytics platform.

JTO Governance Token

JTO is the governance token for the Jito DAO, which controls protocol fee parameters, treasury deployment, and validator delegation strategy for the jitoSOL pool. JTO was airdropped in December 2023 to early users of the protocol.

Total maximum supply is 1 billion JTO. Initial distribution: 34.29% to community growth (including the airdrop), 25% to ecosystem development, 24.5% to core contributors, and 16.21% to investors, with the remainder split across the DAO treasury, foundation, and liquidity reserves. Core contributors had a one-year cliff before any tokens unlocked (meaning no releases until December 2024), with a three-year vesting schedule. Investor tranches follow multi-year schedules with major unlocks beginning January 2026. Circulating supply was approximately 433.5 million JTO (43.35% of total) as of February 2026, with ongoing unlock events continuing through 2026 and beyond.

JTO functions primarily as a governance token rather than a direct cash-flow claim. However, the Cryptoeconomics SubDAO (CSD) — a specialized governance body within the DAO — is responsible for deploying treasury capital, with potential mechanisms including token buybacks, fee switch vaults, or yield subsidies. JIP-24 in August 2025 redirected all protocol revenue to the DAO treasury, strengthening the mathematical backing of the treasury controlled by JTO holders.

Revenue

Jito generates revenue through three streams. The Block Engine fee (6% of MEV rewards) produces an estimated $19 million annually at current network activity levels. BAM generates an estimated $15 million annually. The liquid staking commission on jitoSOL — 5–8% of earned rewards — produces approximately $9.4 million annually based on 14.5 million SOL staked. Combined protocol revenue exceeds $30 million per year under current network conditions, all of which flows to the DAO treasury following JIP-24.

Market Position and Adoption

By early 2026, jitoSOL is the largest liquid staking token on Solana by TVL at approximately $2.92 billion, ahead of Marinade Finance (approximately $2 billion TVL). The penetration of the Jito-Solana client across the validator set — around 94–95% of active stake — means MEV tip distribution is embedded in Solana's reward structure at scale. Institutional adoption has expanded: 21Shares launched a regulated Jito ETP in January 2026, providing European investors with regulated exposure to the JTO token.