Solana airdrop season is in full swing. And this time, it’s Jito Network bringing the token rewards.
The innovative liquid staking provider recently announced its governance token JTO and plans for an upcoming airdrop.
Do you know if you’re eligible?
If not, we got you covered. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about the Jito airdrop and token so you can get in on the action.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
Overview
- Project: Jito Network
- Token ticker: $JTO
- Blockchain: Solana
- Sector: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Business model: Validators, staking, liquid staking tokens (LSTs), and maximal extractable value (MEV)
- Ethereum counterparts:
- Staking: Lido (stETH), Rocket Pool (rETH), Binance (wBETH), and Frax (sfrxETH)
- MEV: Flashbots
What does Jito Network do?
Jito Network’s JitoSOL is the biggest liquid staking token (LST) provider on Solana, surpassing Marinade in November 2023. As of November 29, 2023 Jito registered a total value locked (TVL) of 6.6M SOL or $402M.
Before we dive into Jito in greater detail, it’s important to cover maximal extractable value (MEV).
MEV refers to the maximum amount of value a validator can make by including, excluding, or changing the order of transactions during the block production process. As such, MEV encompasses both the rewards a validator can earn through transaction fees and any additional rewards they can gain through their control over the transaction order. In other words, MEV is the process of optimizing a blockchain’s blocks to build the most profitable and efficient blocks for the network.
So, how does Jito fit in?
Jito Foundation released an open-source Solana validator client, Jito-Solana, which minimizes the negative effects of MEV—e.g. spam trades and failed transactions—while maximizing its benefits—e.g. network efficiency and additional rewards. The Jito-Solana validator client currently runs on approximately 40% of Solana stake across more than 230 validators.
When staking into Jito Network’s stake pools, you receive yield-bearing JitoSOL, which represents your original SOL deposit and any accrued staking rewards. The Jito Network stake pool will distribute the SOL deposited a decentralized set of 100 validators running the Jito-Solana client. The staking rewards and MEV rewards from validators in the stake pool are redistributed to Jito Network’s treasury and JitoSOL—creating a positive flywheel.
For this reason, many have described Jito as combining the best of both worlds: Lido’s liquid staking and Flashbot’s MEV capabilities.
For more on liquid staking in general, read our Solana liquid staking guide.
What is the JTO token?
JTO is a governance token which allows community members to have a direct impact on the decision-making and direction of the Jito network.
As such, the JTO governance token might be used for:
- JitoSOL Stake Pool: Setting and modifying fees
- StakeNet: Updating delegation strategies
- Product: Contributing to the development and improvement of Jito’s product portfolio
- Economics: Managing the DAO treasury and fees generated from JitoSOL
How to qualify for the JTO airdrop?
Initially, Jito gave out points for SOL staked on the platform, i.e. stake pools.
Based on these points, the token allocation will be calculated. The snapshot for this calculation was taken on November 25th, 2023. Validators that ran the Jito-Solana client and MEV searchers, or traders, that leverage Jito Network’s on-chain programs are also eligible for the airdrop.
How to claim the Jito airdrop?
The airdrop claim window is now open as of December 7th, 2023 at 11am ET (Token Generation Date). Any eligible airdrop recipients will be able to claim their JTO tokens for 18 months, starting on the Token Generation Date.
If you're eligible, you'll be able to claim your JTO tokens through Jito's airdrop claim tool at https://jito.network.
Please exercise caution and be wary of potential scams. Only click on and visit official links from Jito and do not respond to any direct messages from unknown parties related to the JTO airdrop—regardless if you’re on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, or any other platform.
For official links, refer to the following:
Official JTO mint address: jtojtomepa8beP8AuQc6eXt5FriJwfFMwQx2v2f9mCL
Official Jito airdrop claim link: https://jito.network/airdrop
Official Jito website: https://jito.network
Official Jito Twitter: https://twitter.com/jito_sol
Official Jito blog: Additional airdrop claiming details
How to trade JTO with Phantom?
Notice: You need to hold SOL in your Phantom wallet to complete this process.
In case you’re not eligible for the JTO airdrop, or you’d like to buy, sell, and/or trade JTO tokens, we got you covered.
- Log-in to your Phantom browser extension or mobile app
- Select a wallet which holds the tokens you’d like to trade
- Click on the swap (arrow) icon at the bottom
- Select the token pair you’d like to trade in the swap widget
- Review the order, then submit!
How to bridge tokens to Solana with Phantom?
If this is your first time using Solana, you might have most of your assets on other blockchains, such as Ethereum—which is perfect for our Cross-Chain Swapper.
With Cross-Chain Swapper, you can bridge tokens across Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon right in your Phantom wallet.
How to set up a Phantom Wallet?
If you’d like a friendly multichain wallet for crypto, DeFi, and NFTs, try us out! We offer browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Brave, and Edge, as well as apps for iOS and Android.
First, download Phantom. Then, create a new wallet.
If you’d like to fund, or send funds to, your Phantom wallet, you can do so via the “Buy” button on your asset tab. We offer various funding options such as MoonPay, PayPal, and Robinhood to make it easy for you to fund your wallet.
Once you do that, you're ready to go!
Disclaimer: This guide is strictly for educational purposes only and doesn’t constitute financial or legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.
