Request for Stake Pool Validators
JitoSOL, Solana’s first MEV-powered staking token, is seeking additional validators for its stake pool. JitoSOL was launched in early November and has already become the fourth-largest staking pool on Solana with over 300k SOL. The stake pool improves network performance and offers one of Solana’s highest liquid staking yields.
JitoSOL currently delegates to 24 validators with each receiving 13k SOL. The Jito Foundation wants to add validators to improve decentralization and diversify the current pool. The pool targets a minimum delegation of 10k SOL per validator. This threshold can be maintained by removing non-compliant delegates and growing the JitoSOL supply.
Delegation Criteria
JitoSOL’s pool was created to support Solana’s decentralization and network performance. The delegation criteria were derived from those overarching goals. One unique requirement vs. other pools is that validators must run Jito-Solana, an MEV-enabled validator client.
Jito-Solana is a fork of the Solana validator client with added functionality for MEV reward sharing. The client benefits the network and increases validator revenue. Jito-Solana is free, open source, audited and already implemented by more than 5% of Solana’s stake-weight. Existing validators can switch over to Jito-Solana within a few minutes. For further information on the benefits of Jito-Solana, read the launch announcement or review its documentation.
Other delegation variables include voting rates, stake weight, commissions and datacenter concentration. For more details, see our delegation strategy document. In general, Jito’s validator scoring correlates highly with Stakewiz and Validators.app rankings.
Validator Interest Submission
Jito Foundation has created a form validators can submit to expedite their consideration. The information includes validator details, contact info and some other questions. This form and any data is optional but will help Jito evaluate validators for inclusion.
For example, contact information is helpful for decision-making if delegates experience prolonged outages. The questions on Jito-Solana will help Jito improve its onboarding process while communication preferences should streamline notifications going forward.
An account is created upon email entry. Responses can be modified anytime after submission via an email access code verification. To reiterate, this form is not required but will help with Jito’s evaluation process. Form link.
Note for Solana Foundation Delegates
The Solana Foundation supports validators who choose to run Jito-Solana and earn additional MEV rewards. There are no risks of stake loss from the decision to switch clients for Solana Foundation delegates.
Next Steps
Jito Foundation will be reviewing new validators as they are submitted or upon the transition to the Jito-Solana client. The validator additions will start in the next few weeks. Jito representatives will be in touch with candidates for inclusion, provided they submit contact information.
Note, any validator can (and should!) consider running Jito-Solana, regardless of its delegation eligibility. The client is by no means exclusive to stake pool validators. The Jito-Solana client benefits the network while increasing revenue for validators and stakers.
For any additional questions, please ask in the #stake-pool-delegates channel of the Jito Discord (invite link).
Additional Resources