About

Jito is a liquid staking solution for Solana. The protocol’s smart contracts allow users to stake SOL on Solana to receive a corresponding liquid staking derivative token, JitoSOL. JitoSOL accumulates daily SOL rewards from Solana validators that participate in Jito’s liquid staking pool (block rewards, transaction fees, and MEV rewards). According to the project’s documentation, “the token’s yield accrues in its price rather than on an ongoing distribution…as rewards are accrued, JitoSOL will appreciate vs. SOL (e.g. 1.05 SOL per JitoSOL).” The protocol uses staked SOL to delegate towards “MEV-enabled” Solana validators, increasing participation in the network’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

History

Jito Labs was founded in 2021 by Lucas Bruder and Zano Sherwani. They sought to create an accessible protocol for MEV-based staking. The protocol launched its liquid staking functionality in conjunction with its Jito-Solana validator client in October 2022.

The Jito Foundation shared plans to introduce its JTO token on Nov. 27, 2023, with the token launching on Dec. 7, 2023. JTO launched via an airdrop of 100 million tokens (10% of the total token supply). Airdropped tokens are sourced from the approximate 342.86 million JTO (34.29% of the total token supply) “Community Growth” allocation of the initial token supply. The snapshot for eligible participants was taken on Nov. 25, 2023. The airdrop claim window will remain open for 18 months, ending in June 2025.