Jito launches governance token and announces airdrop

Developers of the liquid staking protocol on Solana — Jito Network — launched the native governance token JTO with a circulating supply of 1 billion coins.

1. Introducing $JTO: A New Era of Community-Led Governance.

The Jito Foundation is thrilled to unveil the $JTO governance token to enable community-driven leadership. pic.twitter.com/98lI7Y3NVm

— Jito (@jito_sol) November 27, 2023

Jito is building the infrastructure to mitigate the negative impact of MEV-bots on the broader ecosystem. According to the company's statement, the JitoMEV validator network controls 40% of the assets locked in Solana.

The launch of the native token will give community members the ability to exert direct influence over decision-making and the network's direction, including setting fees for the staking pool, controlling treasury revenues, and DAO.

Initially, 115 million JITO were put into circulation: about 34% of the tokens are earmarked for community growth, 25% for ecosystem development, 24.5% for core participants, and 16% for investors.

Representatives of the project also announced that 10% of the coin's issuance will be allocated to Jito's community members in recognition of their contribution to building the network and enabling participation in governance from day one, effectively announcing an airdrop.

“The right to token distribution is determined by a user's contribution to the development and growth of the network. This includes long-time holders of JitoSOL, asset users across various DeFi protocols, Solana validators working with the JitoMEV client, and ecosystem participants interacting with MEV products,” the company said.

Further details about the distribution will be provided in forthcoming announcements.

Earlier in November, the Jupiter DEX aggregator on the Solana network announced a retrodrop among 955,000 wallets.