Jito Releases Solana Restaking Network Code

Author: Jack Kubinec, Blockworks; Translator: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

Solana’s largest liquidity staking project is moving into the re-staking space.

Earlier today, the Jito Foundation announced in a blog post that it had released the code for Jito Re-Staking.The move puts the Jito Foundation in a leading position in the race to build re-staking on Solana as the network’s fast and low-cost DeFi ecosystem continues to expand.

Re-staking refers to using staked cryptocurrency to secure other blockchain applications and services, theoretically extending the security of the blockchain’s base layer. In theory, this should leverage non-productive staked assets and make proof-of-stake systems more efficient.

Eigen Labs was first to launch EigenLayer on Ethereum, which has attracted billions of dollars in deposits in addition to a16z’s $100 million investment.

Restaking is not yet live on Solana, but Jito’s release of its codebase represents a noteworthy step forward. One major competitor is Solayer, which has attracted a lot of interest in the brief period it has been accepting deposits. Solayer’s GitHub does not contain code for its restaking product.

Jito’s restaking combines one of the most compelling pillars of the Solana ecosystem with one of crypto’s hottest narratives. Jito runs a fork of the original Solana Labs validator client with some modifications to enable Maximum Extractable Value (MEV). This MEV can be very lucrative for validators running the Jito-Solana client. Jito co-founder Lucas Bruder said on X that earlier today, a validator received a tip of $311,000 in a single transaction.

Users who stake Solana tokens using Jito’s liquid staking pool can earn liquid JitoSOL.The pool is the network’s largest, and JitoSOL can be used elsewhere in DeFi while earning staking and MEV rewards. Since launching in November 2022, JitoSOL has become Solana’s primary liquid staking token, accounting for about 45% of all liquid staking tokens on the network. (It’s worth noting that only about 6% of staked SOL is held in the form of liquid staking tokens.)

As detailed in a blog post Thursday, Jito’s restaking product uses similar nomenclature to EigenLayer. Node operators can have stakers re-stake their assets, which are used to secure the Active Validation Service (AVS). Nodes that misbehave may be slashed.

One notable difference is that Jito re-staking can accept any token that uses the Solana SPL token standard, while EigenLayer only accepts EIGEN and Ethereum for stake or liquid stake.