Solana Liquid Staking Platform Jito Surpasses $400M in Revenue in Q4

Jito, a Solana-based liquid staking platform, had a record quarter in terms of fees and revenue and brought in more cash than Ethereum’s Lido.

Jito made $402 million in fees and revenue in Q4, according to DeFiLlama, more than any previous quarter and a 504% increase from Q3. The Solana platform surpassed Lido revenue for the first time ever, as the Ethereum-based liquid staking platform made $237 million in fees and revenue in the past three months, a measly 2.7% increase from the previous quarter, according to DeFiLlama data.

Meanwhile, Marinade Finance, a Solana liquid staking protocol, generated $22 million in quarterly revenue, according to data from DeFiLlama.

The tremendous growth of platforms like Jito has been instrumental to Solana’s overall DeFi growth and dominance this year. Jito’s total value locked (TVL) grew by 125% in SOL this year, sparking a surge in Solana’s own TVL which is up 374% in the last year.

Jito Tips and MEV Rewards

Jito staking differs from staking on other platforms primarily because it offers two types of rewards: staking rewards and maximal extractable value (MEV) rewards. When users take their SOL, they get JitoSOL, which they can use in DeFi while their staked SOL accrues rewards.

Furthermore, validators use Jito to extract MEV by using its block engine. Since Jito’s staking rewards are twofold, from staking and MEV, it can’t exactly be compared to other staking platforms that only offer rewards from staking.

Jito restaking is also picking up steam, growing to 229,691 TVL in just three months since its launch. With the passing of the Oct. 24 JIP-8 proposal and the upcoming JIP-10 and JIP-12, a portion of Jito’s tips will be allocated to JitoSOL and Jito restakers. If both proposals are approved, Jito's tips will be distributed using the futarchy market.

Futarchy market is an approach to decision-making that uses speculation and trading rather than voting.

Meanwhile, Jito raised staking reward rates to up to 15% across the Solana ecosystem thanks to its dominant validator market share, which is up 48 percentage points to 89% year-to-date (YTD), according to Kairos Research.