Jito

JitoSOL is a receipt for SOL deposited in the Jito stake pool, which launched in November 2022. The pool spreads deposits across a few hundred Solana validators chosen by a published scoring formula (uptime, commission, running Jito's client, not being a sandwich attacker) and re-balances every epoch. JitoSOL does not rebase: the number of tokens you hold stays fixed and each token becomes worth more SOL.

What set it apart from other Solana LSTs was MEV. Validators running Jito's client collect tips from traders who pay to have their transactions ordered in a certain way. For JitoSOL, those tips go into the pool and raise the exchange rate. In 2023–2024 that gave JitoSOL a visible yield edge, which is how it became the largest Solana LST.

It has lost ground since. JitoSOL fell from 12.35 million SOL at the end of March 2026 to 9.86 million at the end of June, with about 2.6 million SOL of net outflows, and its share of Solana liquid staking slipped from 20.3% to 17.3% (Solana Compass). Competitors now pass MEV through as well, and lower trading activity has shrunk the tips. The protocol has never lost user funds, and our JitoSOL card covers how it compares on custody and peg.

Exits work two ways: swap JitoSOL for SOL on a DEX instantly, or unstake directly from the pool, which pays the pool rate less 0.1% and may deliver a stake account that unlocks at the next epoch (about two days).

There is no fixed APY. The yield is whatever Solana inflation rewards plus MEV tips the pool earns, after validator commissions and Jito's fee, so it moves every epoch. The median implied APY was about 5.7% in Q2 2026. Jito's own site shows the current figure; any number older than a few weeks is out of date.

Fee terms from the JitoSOL FAQ. The yield trend explains the drop in deposits better than anything else. Protocol revenue was $26.1 million at its Q1 2025 peak and $1.28 million in Q2 2026, and MEV tips fell by half quarter on quarter. Less MEV means a smaller gap between JitoSOL and a plain stake.

A bundle is a group of up to five Solana transactions sent to Jito's block engine with a tip. The block engine auctions bundles and forwards the winners to validators running the Jito-Solana client, which execute each bundle in order and atomically: if any transaction fails, none land (Jito docs). Arbitrage bots, liquidators and trading apps use bundles to get guaranteed ordering, for example buy on one DEX and sell on another in the same slot, or place a trade only if a price update lands first.

• Maximum 5 transactions per bundle. A sixth has to go in a separate bundle, with no guarantee the two land together.
• Minimum tip 1,000 lamports, paid to one of eight tip accounts; in busy periods the winning tip is far higher.
• Default rate limit of one request per second per IP per region without an API key.

Jito ran a public mempool alongside the block engine until March 2024, when it shut it down because searchers were using it to sandwich retail swaps (CoinDesk). It still bans validators from the JitoSOL delegation set when on-chain data shows them sandwiching users.

The newer layer is BAM, the Block Assembly Marketplace, where block building runs inside trusted execution environments so ordering rules can be checked. By the end of Q2 2026 BAM covered 33% of Solana stake across 378 validators, and preconfirmations went live on 9 September 2026.

Three bodies share the name. Jito Labs is the company Lucas Bruder (CEO) and Zano Sherwani founded in 2021. It builds the Jito-Solana validator client, the block engine and BAM, and earns from block-engine fees. The Jito Foundation is the non-profit that stewards JitoSOL, the JTO token and restaking, and publishes the docs. The Jito DAO, where JTO holders vote on proposals (JIPs), controls the stake pool's fees and the treasury, which held about $164.7 million at the end of Q2 2026, mostly in JTO.

JTO launched on 7 December 2023 with an airdrop of 90 million tokens to early JitoSOL users and searchers. In October 2025 a16z crypto bought $50 million of JTO from the Foundation. In December 2025 the Foundation said it would move its core operations back to the US, citing the GENIUS Act and clearer rules after years offshore (Jito Foundation). JTO price and supply are on the JTO market page.

On the ETF ticker question: the product with a ticker today is 21Shares' JSOL in Europe. The VanEck fund was still in the SEC listing process when this profile was checked (SEC filing notice).