From behind the scenes to the forefront: Can Jito's JTX redefine on-chain trading?

Original by Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜jk

Executing a professional trade on Solana often requires having eight tabs open simultaneously.

Charts on Birdeye, order execution on Jupiter, position management on Drift, yield strategies on another protocol, prediction markets elsewhere, logging into wallets across different websites eight times—each tool serves its purpose, but none connects them. The bigger problem is that even when you piece all of them together, the execution quality still falls short of centralized exchanges.

On-chain traders have long faced a dilemma: either accept inferior tools or entrust your assets to someone else.

The reason this problem has persisted for so long is simple: those capable of solving it have been busy doing other things.

Solana, JTO, and JTX

Four years ago, when Jito was a startup with less than ten people, it chose a path that would attract little attention: diving deep into Solana's底层, focusing on building infrastructure that ordinary users would never directly interact with.

For those unfamiliar with Solana, you might ask: What is Jito?

Simply put, it's the "engine manufacturer behind the scenes" for the Solana blockchain. In the crypto world, every on-chain transaction undergoes a complex process of ordering, bidding, and confirmation before being packaged into a block. Jito provides the core components of this mechanism.

Think of it this way: Imagine Solana as a highway. Jito is the company responsible for designing and operating the toll booths, ramp control systems, and road sensors. Drivers (users and traders) rarely notice its existence, but without it, the entire road's efficiency would be severely compromised.

Specifically, Jito currently has three core products. The Block Engine handles the majority of on-chain transaction ordering and MEV distribution, acting as the "dispatch center" before transactions enter blocks; JitoSOL is a token that allows holders to stake SOL while maintaining asset liquidity, currently boasting a market cap of over $800 million; and BAM (Block Assembly Mechanism) is the next-generation block assembly architecture, currently run by nearly half of Solana's validators, controlling over 31% of the network's staked supply.

Jito Q1 performance.

Today, Jito is one of the most important and fundamental infrastructure providers in the entire Solana ecosystem.

In May 2026, at the Solana Accelerate conference in Miami, Jito announced a major development: the launch of its user-facing trading product JTX, expected to go live in July this year.

So, what exactly is JTX?

It is a self-custodial, professional-grade on-chain trading platform. Users don't need to transfer assets to any centralized entity. While maintaining complete control over their funds, they can enjoy a trading experience close to that of a centralized exchange (CEX). Chart analysis, various professional order types, spot trading, and planned features like perpetual contracts and prediction markets—all integrated into a single interface. Its target users are advanced traders who find simple swap interfaces insufficient but are unwilling to custody their assets with centralized exchanges.

Why would a company focused on backend infrastructure step into the spotlight? Why a trading product? With these questions, the Odaily team spoke with Marc Liew, Jito Foundation's Head of APAC, to discuss Jito's next steps.

"We Haven't Pivoted, We Just Built What Felt Natural"

When news about JTX broke, many outsiders' first reaction was that Jito was "pivoting."

Marc Liew, Jito Foundation APAC Head, doesn't quite agree with this characterization. "It's more of a natural extension than a pivot," he says. "Jito spent four years perfecting the underlying infrastructure that the Solana economy runs on: the Block Engine, JitoSOL, BAM. This work has given us an incredibly deep understanding of what happens to a transaction from intent to settlement."

However, he believes this understanding has never been passed on to the end-user.

"At some point, you start asking: why hasn't anyone told users this?" Marc says. "Teams building trading products on Solana don't have this depth of execution-layer knowledge. And teams like Jito, who have this accumulated insight, have never actually built a trading product. JTX sits right at this intersection. We are extending our infrastructure directly to the person it was meant to serve."

To understand this logic, one must first identify Jito's core competitive advantage. Its value isn't just in having "built infrastructure," but in the first-hand knowledge accumulated during the process: understanding when transactions fail, how priority fees affect queue order, and how MEV is extracted during block production.

Jito's Block Engine is the core node handling this on-chain mechanism, giving it an understanding of on-chain trading rules that other teams find difficult to replicate. This knowledge is incredibly valuable for any team aiming to build a high-quality trading experience.

"JTX is an attempt to productize this knowledge." Marc told Odaily.

"Solana's Infrastructure is Good Enough; the Problem Lies in the Application Layer"

Discussing the rationale behind JTX, Marc was quite direct: "Solana's infrastructure is the best in the world. It processes more daily transaction volume than all other public chains combined and has been tested under real high-stress conditions that no other chain has faced. The bottleneck for adoption isn't the chain itself, but what's built on top of it."

Jito's decision to build JTX is based on this assessment: Solana is fast enough, but the application layer built on it hasn't yet matched the chain's own capabilities.

The gap between on-chain and off-chain trading experiences is a problem repeatedly discussed within the industry but hasn't been systematically solved. For truly active traders, this gap is particularly stark. "Professional traders on Solana now have to piece together five or six, sometimes eight different applications to accomplish what should be a single workflow," Marc describes. "Charting in one place, executing spot trades in another, portfolio management elsewhere, yield strategies on another protocol, perpetuals and prediction markets possibly on a different chain. And even after piecing it all together, the execution quality doesn't compare to a CEX. So they face a choice: either give up self-custody for a better experience, or keep self-custody and accept inferior tools."

This dilemma is precisely the problem JTX aims to solve.

Terminal, Aggregator, Broker: None of These Labels Fit

JTX's positioning is difficult to neatly categorize within the industry's existing terminology.

Marc dismissed several common labels one by one. "'Terminal' is a term already occupied by a certain tier of product in crypto; we're not building at that level. 'Aggregator' implies we're just routing orders to someone else's infrastructure. 'Broker' suggests an intermediary standing between you and your assets. None of these are accurate."

His internal definition is that JTX is a Trading Engine. "It's a professional workspace where serious traders execute trades, manage positions, and deploy capital. We've brought together the best tools available and layered on top a depth of infrastructure understanding that's hard to match on any other chain."

On the product side, JTX will launch with spot trading (including RWA assets), followed by the gradual integration of perpetual contracts (through a partnership with Phoenix) and prediction markets (via a Solana-native protocol currently in development). Charting tools, order execution, portfolio management, and capital efficiency functions will all be available within a single account and interface.

The advantage of self-custody needs no further explanation: on traditional centralized exchanges, assets deposited are effectively controlled by the platform. The collapse of FTX is the most extreme example of this risk. Users' assets appeared on the books but were actually misappropriated. JTX's self-custody model means assets always remain in the user's own wallet. JTX is merely an interface for executing trades; the platform itself has no power to access user funds.

Regarding established Solana-native tools like Jupiter, Birdeye, Axiom, Photon, Drift, and Phoenix, Marc's position is that JTX should be understood as an interface that brings them together, not as their competitor. "It allows a trader to access the best of the Solana ecosystem in one place, with institutional-grade execution quality."

The "integration, not competition" rhetoric sounds balanced. But given Jito's history of deeply embedding itself with Solana ecosystem partners, this might just be its consistent modus operandi: build the foundation, let others build on top, and when the time is right, take over the interface layer as well.

Execution Quality is Jito's True Moat

Among all the narratives surrounding JTX, "execution quality" is mentioned most frequently.

Behind this lies four years of actual experience. "Every serious team building on Solana eventually comes to Jito to understand exactly how transactions work—how they land on-chain, where they fail, what determines their success or failure," Marc says. "We've spent four years studying every edge case within Solana's transaction pipeline. This knowledge has been directly applied to JTX's product design."

This translates into solutions for several key trading pain points:

• Front-running is one of the most frustrating issues in on-chain trading. Pending transactions are publicly visible before being packaged into blocks, allowing bots with priority to see your buy order, buy at a higher priority fee first, and then sell to you after your transaction goes through at a higher price. BAM's next-generation block assembly architecture allows transactions to remain private until execution, structurally breaking this chain.
• Failed transactions increase significantly during network congestion, and failed transactions still incur fees. Traders often face the dilemma of "paying fees but getting nothing." JTX is designed with the principle of "either execute at the price you see, or don't execute at all," fundamentally solving this silent failure issue.
• Priority fees become crucial during peak periods on Solana. Traders need to pay higher priority fees for their transactions to be packaged first. How to set them, when, and how much involves a game theory logic that requires deep experience. Jito's understanding of how Solana handles transactions under pressure is directly translated into JTX's execution quality management mechanisms.

Regarding CEX-level advanced order types, including limit orders, TWAP, stop-loss/take-profit, OCO, etc., Marc indicated that JTX will offer some at launch, with the rest rolled out subsequently. He provided a frank explanation of the technical challenges involved: "The challenge with implementing these order types on-chain is that they require a level of execution reliability that most platforms cannot provide because they are built on infrastructure they don't deeply understand. Our team built the execution infrastructure that Solana runs on. This means when we design a stop-loss order or an OCO, we aren't hoping the network cooperates. We know exactly how these orders interact with the transaction pipeline and have architected the system accordingly."

Comparison with Hyperliquid: Respect, But a Different Approach

JTX cannot avoid comparison with Hyperliquid, which, with its own L1, has achieved annualized fees exceeding $600 million, proving massive market demand for professional on-chain trading experiences.

Marc offered genuine praise for Hyperliquid: "I have a lot of respect for what they've built. They proved there is massive demand for a professional on-chain trading experience—on their own L1, without any of Solana's infrastructure advantages, generating over $600 million in annualized fees."

He believes JTX's differentiation lies in two dimensions: firstly, Jito's deep engineering expertise and the overall support of the Solana ecosystem; secondly, a different product positioning. JTX aims to be the application where a trader "can access any asset class," covering prediction markets, crypto assets, and the growing trend of RWAs (Real World Assets).

From this perspective, JTX represents a vertical integration of financial tools across the entire Solana ecosystem. Compared to Hyperliquid's "one chain, one tool" philosophy, JTX will likely be more comprehensive in functionality. However, whether its trading design and experience can surpass Hyperliquid remains to be seen upon the product's official launch.

"Many financial applications are evolving towards multi-asset platforms. In that dimension, JTX does have competitors. But we believe Jito's deep engineering specialization and the overall weight of the Solana ecosystem are our true differentiators."

The Question Retail Investors Care About Most: What Do JTO Holders Get?

For those unfamiliar, JTO is the governance token of the Jito ecosystem. Holder benefits aren't just limited to voting rights; they also include actual economic returns from protocol revenue distribution. A portion of the staking rewards from JitoSOL and the MEV revenue from the Block Engine is directed to JTO holders. This is the fundamental logic of Jito's tokenomics.

The launch of JTX adds a direct consumer-facing revenue stream to this logic. Following the JTX announcement, JTO surged 45%.

The revenue distribution structure is quite clear: 80% of JTX's protocol revenue flows to the Jito Protocol, ultimately accruing to JTO holders; the remaining 20% is reinvested into the product's continued growth and development.

Marc likened this model to Jito's existing mechanisms: "This follows the same model already running with JitoSOL and the entire Jito network—fees generated at the protocol level accrue to JTO. JTX plugs into the Jito economic architecture, not as a standalone product. Every transaction occurring on JTX directly contributes to the ecosystem."

Marc also highlighted the key metrics for JTO holders to watch: JTX's trading volume tops the revenue funnel; user retention determines revenue sustainability; and expansion into new asset types and markets broadens the revenue base. "Spot trading comes first, with perpetuals and prediction markets on the roadmap. Each new market type represents a new revenue surface. JTO holders should view JTX just like JitoSOL or BAM—as another pillar at the market layer, generating real economic activity and channeling its value back to the token."

Three Years Later, the CEX vs. DEX Distinction Might Not Matter

Discussing the trajectory of on-chain trading over the next three years, Marc presented a thought-provoking framework:

"The phrase 'becoming more like a CEX' is actually the wrong perspective. What's really happening is that the best elements of centralized trading—speed, professional tools, execution quality—are being rebuilt on a foundation that centralized exchanges can never achieve: self-custody, transparency, and composability."

In his estimation, three years from now, the distinction between "CEX" and "DEX" will become meaningless for most traders. "They just want the best execution, the best tools, and complete control over their assets. The product that makes this combination feel effortless will win. We believe the future of professional trading lives on-chain, lives on Solana, and JTX is our bet on this vision."

From a milestones perspective, Marc outlined the most trackable events over the next 12 months: JTX's official launch in July, supporting spot trading, professional order types, and self-custody; followed by expansion into perpetual contracts and prediction markets, positioning JTX as potentially one of the most feature-complete on-chain trading venues. On the infrastructure side, BAM adoption continues to accelerate, and institutional initiatives like the 21Shares JitoSOL ETP and the partnership with Korea's KODA are progressing concurrently.

Conclusion

From its announcement at Solana Accelerate to its July launch and subsequent expansion into perpetuals and prediction markets, JTX's timeline is clear and aggressive. Whether it can carve out its place in a competitive landscape featuring Jupiter, Drift, Phoenix, and Hyperliquid ultimately hinges on one thing: Can Jito's four years of accumulated infrastructure knowledge translate into a perceptible difference in execution quality for the average trader?

If the answer is yes, this will be a rare instance of vertical integration from the foundational layer to the front-end in the crypto industry. If not, it will still be a noteworthy attempt—a record of what happens when an infrastructure company steps into the spotlight.

The answer arrives this July.