Jito

Jito, also called Jito Network, is a Solana project best known for two things: MEV tools and liquid staking. It is not JITO, the Jain International Trade Organisation. Jito makes the software that lets Solana validators sell the best spots in a block to the highest bidder. It also issues JitoSOL, a token you get for staking SOL. JitoSOL earns staking rewards plus a share of those bids. Jito has since added BAM, a new way to build blocks, and JTX, a trading app that opened in July 2026. It now calls itself "the market layer of Solana". Holders of the JTO token vote on how Jito is run.

How Jito works: MEV tips, bundles and the Block Engine

Jito turns the race for position inside a Solana block into an auction. MEV, short for maximum extractable value, is the profit a trader can make from where a transaction lands in a block. Traders send Jito a "bundle" of transactions with a tip attached. The Jito Block Engine picks the highest-paying bundles and passes them to the validator building the block. The tips are then shared between validators and the people who stake with them.

A Jito bundle holds up to five transactions that run in order and either all succeed or all fail, according to Jito's developer docs. That all-or-nothing rule is why trading bots, arbitrage desks and Telegram trading apps use bundles. A two-step trade can't be left half done.

Validators take part by running Jito-Solana, a modified version of the Agave validator client, and connecting it to the Block Engine. Tips build up over each epoch, which has lasted about a day since Solana moved to faster slots in October 2026. A separate Jito system called TipRouter then works out who is owed what and pays it out.

Jito tip vs priority fee

A Jito tip is separate from a Solana priority fee. The priority fee goes to the validator building the block, and it moves a transaction up the queue. The tip is a bid in Jito's own auction. Jito's docs set a minimum tip of 1,000 lamports for bundles, and only the tip counts for a bundle. For a single transaction sent through Jito, the docs suggest splitting your spend between the two, with most of it going to the priority fee.

What is JitoSOL? Liquid staking with MEV rewards

JitoSOL is the token you receive when you stake SOL through Jito. It stands for your share of a large pool of staked SOL. The pool earns normal Solana staking rewards plus MEV tips, so JitoSOL has two sources of income. You never claim rewards. The amount of SOL each JitoSOL can be redeemed for rises over time instead.

Because JitoSOL is an ordinary Solana token, you can keep using it while it earns. Jito's site lists Kamino Finance KMNO$0.033-6.9%, Raydium RAY$1.68-5.1%, Orca ORCA$1.32-9.3% and Meteora MET$0.268-11.0% among the apps that accept it, as collateral for loans or as liquidity in trading pools. This is the main difference from native staking, where your SOL sits locked with one validator.

JitoSOL fees, APY and yield

JitoSOL charges a management fee of 4% of the rewards the pool earns, per Jito's FAQ. Jito puts that at about 0.3% of your deposit per year. The fee is taken after each validator's own commission.

The yield moves with the network. Staking rewards follow Solana's inflation schedule, and MEV tips rise and fall with trading activity. A quiet market means fewer tips. Through 2026, JitoSOL's yield has stayed close to Solana's typical staking rate of around 5% a year, with MEV adding only a small part. You can check the live rate against other pools on our stake pool comparison.

How to unstake JitoSOL and convert it to SOL

You have two ways out. You can unstake on Jito's site, which costs a 0.1% fee and takes up to one epoch, about a day. Or you can swap JitoSOL for SOL on an exchange such as Jupiter JUP$0.240-7.5%, which is instant but depends on the market price. Jito's FAQ points most people to the swap, which also avoids the fee. For a large amount, it asks you to check the price impact on Jupiter first.

How StakeNet chooses validators for the JitoSOL pool

StakeNet is the on-chain program that decides which validators receive the pool's SOL. No person picks them. Every validator is scored against public rules. The pool's SOL is then split evenly between those that pass. The set can hold up to 400 validators, and the scores are redone every ten epochs.

The rules reward low fees and steady work. Jito's delegation criteria require a staking commission of 5% or less and an MEV commission of 10% or less. A validator must also run Jito's client, keep a strong voting record and stay out of the superminority, the largest validators that together hold a third of all stake. Validators that also run BAM can get extra stake and subsidies under separate proposals such as JIP-28.

Jito walked through the full process in an August 2026 post on how the pool hands out stake.

A bigger change is planned. JIP-39, published as an official proposal in August 2026, sets out a plan to move a quarter of the pool to validators run by Jito itself. Those validators would charge no commission and pass their block rewards on to JitoSOL holders. As written, the move is spread over four StakeNet cycles and targets completion in the middle of the last quarter of 2026. The aim is a slightly higher yield for holders.

The cost is plain too. A quarter of the pool would sit with one operator, and the proposal accepts that the other validators in the pool will earn less.

What is Jito BAM? The Block Assembly Marketplace

BAM is Jito's newer system for building Solana blocks. It moves the job of ordering trades into sealed hardware, so nobody can see or reorder them before they run. Jito first showed BAM in July 2025 and switched it on for mainnet that September. By early October 2026, validators holding more than a third of all staked SOL were using it, according to the BAM changelog.

The sealed hardware is called a Trusted Execution Environment, or TEE. Think of it as a locked room inside a chip. BAM nodes put trades in order inside that room and hand the list to the validator. Keeping orders hidden until they run is meant to stop sandwich attacks. In a sandwich, a bot trades just before and just after you to profit from your order.

BAM runs its auctions in very short rounds. The BAM changelog says they were cut from 25 to 20 milliseconds when Solana moved to faster slots in October 2026. BAM also lets apps set their own ordering rules through "plugins". The launch post gave one example: putting market makers' cancels first, so they can pull stale quotes before other traders hit them. One live plugin, the Maker Priority Plugin, carries price updates from on-chain market makers.

BAM Direct Bundle Ingest, preconfirmations and FireBAM

In October 2026 Jito added Direct Bundle Ingest. It lets traders send bundles straight to BAM, skipping a trip through the Block Engine. Access is by request for now. Our report on Direct Bundle Ingest covers the roughly 50 millisecond saving.

In September 2026 Jito switched on BAM preconfirmations. This is a fast data feed of what a BAM validator has agreed to run next. It is sold through Helius hSOL$107.00-6.8% and Triton One. BAM validators get 35% of what the feed earns, and those payments began in October. We covered the launch in our report on BAM preconfirmations.

BAM no longer runs only on Agave. FireBAM, a version for validators on the Frankendancer client, went live on mainnet in May 2026. By early October it still carried under 5% of BAM's stake, per the BAM changelog.

BAM after Alpenglow

Solana's Alpenglow upgrade replaced the network's voting system on 21 October 2026. Jito put every BAM node into maintenance mode in the days before, as its Alpenglow readiness post set out. Validators fell back to the ordinary Block Engine, and bundles kept working. BAM-only features such as Direct Bundle Ingest and the Maker Priority Plugin were paused. Jito said nodes would come back gradually while it watched performance. See our coverage of the plan.

Is BAM open source?

Not fully. Its ordering code is still closed. Jito wrote in late September 2026 that "trust in BAM still resides on Jito's reputation". The attestations post lists what is left to do. A public registry of BAM nodes has to reach mainnet. After that, Jito plans to publish proofs that each node runs the right code, together with the ordering code itself. None of these steps has a date. Our news piece on the attestation design has more detail.

JTX: a self-custody trading platform for Solana traders

JTX is a trading app built by Jito Labs that runs on Solana and leaves your funds in your own wallet. It opened to all users on 21 July 2026, per the launch announcement. JTX offers spot trading with limit orders, take-profit and stop-loss orders, and orders split over time.

Jito is open that JTX is aimed at experienced traders. Its post explaining the product says the interface "assumes competence" and will not explain basics. Markets at launch included SOL, memecoins and tokenized stocks and funds.

In October 2026 Brian Smith of the Jito Foundation gave the first timeline, The Block reported. A stocks feature was due within two weeks, and a mobile app later in the autumn. Perpetual futures would come "maybe later this winter". Each trade pays a fee, and 80% of it goes to the Jito DAO. The launch announcement says the other 20% goes to referrers, while the JIP-38 proposal describes it as money kept for JTX development. For background, see our guide to JTX.

Restaking JitoSOL: vaults, node consensus networks and TipRouter

Jito Restaking lets you put tokens that are already staked, such as JitoSOL, to work a second time. You deposit them in a vault. The vault lends their security to an outside service and gives you a receipt token in return. Jito calls these services node consensus networks. One of them is Jito's own TipRouter, which calculates MEV tip payouts.

Restaking is a small and riskier corner of Jito. Withdrawals take two epochs, and the restaking docs warn that deposits can be slashed, meaning partly taken away, if an operator breaks a network's rules. Slashing may not be switched on for every vault, so the docs advise checking first. This is a restaking rule: Solana itself does not slash stake. The protocol charges a 4% fee on rewards and 0.1% on withdrawals. Each vault can add its own fees.

How Jito makes money: JTO token, fees and buybacks

JTO is Jito's governance token. Holders vote on JitoSOL's fees, the StakeNet rules and how the DAO's funds are spent. The supply is capped at one billion JTO. A tenth of it was set aside as an airdrop for early users, according to the token announcement.

The DAO collects what the protocol earns. That covers the JitoSOL fee and a cut of MEV tips. Jito charges a 6% fee on Block Engine tips. Half of it used to go to Jito Labs. A vote in August 2025 sent all of it to the DAO.

JTX adds a new stream. Under a proposal called JIP-38, four fifths of JTX trading fees go to the DAO. The DAO has pledged to spend all of that share on buying JTO in the open market and burning it. The pledge lasts at least a year, and holders are due to review it late in 2027.

JTO does not pay holders a share of income directly. Votes decide whether the money goes to buybacks or to growth. Through 2026 most of it has gone to growth: the DAO has been paying its protocol income to validators as a reward for moving to BAM. JIP-39 would keep that reward at the full rate to the end of 2026, then phase it out by mid-2027. We looked at the effect in our coverage of Jito's second-quarter revenue.

Who Jito is for: stakers, bot builders, validators and traders

Jito serves four different groups, and each uses a different product.

SOL holders who want staking income and a token they can still spend or borrow against are the audience for JitoSOL. It suits you less if you want to choose your own validator, or if you don't want any smart contract between you and your stake.

Bot builders and trading desks use bundles when a trade must land in full and in order. Validators run Jito's client to earn tips, and running BAM can win them extra JitoSOL stake and subsidies. Active traders who already know order types are the audience for JTX. Beginners are not, by Jito's own account.

Is JitoSOL safe? Audits, custody and risks

JitoSOL keeps you in control of your SOL and runs on audited code, but it is not free of risk. Jito's FAQ says JitoSOL is non-custodial and that "holders always maintain control over their SOL". The pool runs on a shared stake pool program. Solana Labs wrote it, and many Solana staking tokens use it.

The JitoSOL audits cover that shared program. Jito's deployed programs page lists reviews by Quantstamp, Neodyme and Kudelski. The code can still be changed. The same page says the keys to change it are held by "a committee of Solana Staking Ecosystem participants". It does not name them.

Other Jito code had its own checks. OtterSec, Offside Labs and Certora audited the restaking and vault programs. In May 2026 Jito said Asymmetric Research was still reviewing FireBAM before its full release.

Jito's own Steward program needs a closer look. It is the StakeNet code that moves the pool's stake between validators. Jito's docs do not say who can change it, and we could not confirm that ourselves. JTO holders vote on the pool's fees and validator rules.

Other risks are worth knowing:

• The market price of JitoSOL can dip below what it can be redeemed for when many holders sell at once. Unstaking on Jito's site always pays the full rate, but takes up to an epoch.
• MEV income is not promised. It falls when trading is quiet.
• BAM relies on TEE chips and on code that outsiders can't yet read.
• If JIP-39 goes ahead as written, a quarter of the pool sits with Jito's own validators.
• Using JitoSOL as loan collateral, or in restaking, adds the risk of being liquidated or slashed.

Jito has also had to undo one of its own features. The Block Engine once offered a public view of trades waiting to run, known as a mempool. Bots used it to sandwich ordinary traders. In March 2024 Jito Labs said it would switch the feature off, as Blockworks reported.

JitoSOL vs mSOL, JupSOL and native staking

JitoSOL is the pick for MEV income, a spread of hundreds of validators and wide use across Solana apps. The other choices differ in their fees, whether you get a token at all, and who picks the validators.

Marinade has its own token, mSOL. It also offers native staking, where your SOL stays in your own stake accounts with no pool in between. Marinade's own comparison calls that its main difference from Jito.

JupSOL, from Jupiter, is built around Jupiter's own validator. Its staking page lists a 5% validator fee plus a 5% pool fee, both taken from inflation rewards only. JupSOL costs nothing to join and 0.1% to redeem through the pool. You trade JitoSOL's wide spread for one well-known operator.

Staking with one validator yourself is the simplest route. You pay no pool fee and you don't rely on pool code. In return your SOL is locked until you unstake, and you depend on one operator. You can compare validators by fees and uptime before you pick one.

Solana Compass is not neutral here. We run a validator and our own liquid staking token, compassSOL, so we compete with Jito for stake. compassSOL stakes only with our validator and charges 2.5% of rewards. You can see how it works on our staking page.

Jito Labs, the Jito Foundation and key dates

Jito is made up of two bodies. Jito Labs is the company that builds the validator client, the Block Engine, BAM and JTX. The Jito Foundation carries out the decisions of JTO holders. Lucas Bruder is co-founder and CEO of Jito Labs. Brian Smith is president of the Jito Foundation.

In October 2025 a16z crypto put $50 million into the Jito Foundation through a private token sale, as The Block reported.

The main dates in Jito's history:

• 2021: Jito Labs starts work on Solana MEV software.
• November 2023: the JTO token and its airdrop are announced.
• March 2024: Jito Labs suspends the Block Engine mempool.
• July 2025: BAM is announced. It reaches mainnet that September.
• October 2025: a16z crypto invests $50 million in the Jito Foundation.
• May 2026: FireBAM brings BAM to Frankendancer validators.
• July 2026: JTX opens to all users, and JIP-38 ties its fees to JTO buybacks.
• September 2026: BAM preconfirmations go live.
• October 2026: Jito adds Direct Bundle Ingest to BAM and pauses BAM nodes for Solana's Alpenglow upgrade, which went live on 21 October.