从幕後到台前，Jito 的 JTX 能否重新定義鏈上交易？

Original: Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

By jk

Making a professional trade on Solana often requires opening eight browser tabs simultaneously.

Charts on Birdeye, order execution on Jupiter, position management on Drift, yield strategies on another protocol, prediction markets somewhere else, logging into wallets across different websites eight times. Each tool does its job, but none connects them. The bigger problem is that even when you piece everything together, 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 remained unsolved is quite 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 fewer than ten people, it chose the path least likely to be seen: going deep into Solana's底层 to focus on building infrastructure that ordinary users would never directly interact with.

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

In simple terms, it's the "behind-the-scenes engine manufacturer" for the Solana blockchain. In the crypto world, every on-chain transaction must go through a complex sequence of ordering, bidding, and confirmation before being packed 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) usually don't 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 vast majority of on-chain transaction ordering and MEV distribution, acting as the "dispatch center" before transactions enter a block; JitoSOL is a token that allows holders to stake SOL while maintaining liquidity, currently with a market cap exceeding $800 million; BAM (Block Assembly Mechanism) is the next-generation block assembly architecture, already run by nearly half of Solana's validators, representing over 31% of staked network assets.

Jito Q1 performance.

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

In May 2026, Jito announced a major development at the Solana Accelerate conference in Miami: launching a trading product for end-users called JTX, expected to officially launch in July this year.

So what is JTX?

It's a self-custodied, professional-grade on-chain trading platform. Users don't need to transfer their assets to any centralized institution. They retain full control over their assets while enjoying a trading experience comparable to centralized exchanges (CEXs). Chart analysis, multiple professional order types, spot trading, and planned future features like perpetual contracts and prediction markets are all integrated within one interface. Its target users are advanced traders who find simple swap interfaces insufficient but are unwilling to custody their assets on centralized exchanges.

Why would a company deeply rooted in the backend step into the spotlight? Why a trading product? With these questions, the Odaily team connected with Marc Liew, Jito Foundation's head for the Asia-Pacific region, to discuss Jito's next steps.

"We're not pivoting; we just built the most useful tool"

When news of JTX broke, the initial reaction from outsiders was that Jito was "pivoting."

Marc Liew, Jito Foundation's APAC head, disagrees with this characterization. "It's more of a natural extension than a pivot," he said. "Jito has spent four years building the underlying infrastructure that the Solana economy relies on—the Block Engine, JitoSOL, BAM. This work has given us an incredibly deep understanding of exactly 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 isn't anyone telling users this?" Marc said. "Teams building trading products on Solana don't have this depth of execution-layer knowledge. Teams like Jito, who have this knowledge, have never actually built a trading product. JTX sits at this intersection. We're extending the infrastructure directly to the user it was always meant to serve."

To understand this logic, one must first grasp Jito's core competency. Its value isn't just about "building infrastructure" itself, but rather the first-hand knowledge accumulated during that process about on-chain transaction mechanisms: under what conditions transactions fail, how priority fees affect ordering, how MEV is extracted during block production.

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

"JTX is Jito's attempt to productize this knowledge." Marc told Odaily Planet Daily.

"Solana's infrastructure is good enough; the problem is at the application layer"

When discussing the rationale behind JTX, Marc was direct in his assessment: "Solana's infrastructure is the best in the world. It handles more daily transaction volume than all other public chains combined and has passed real, high-stress tests that other chains have never faced. The bottleneck for adoption isn't the chain itself, but what is built on top of it."

Jito's decision to build JTX is based on this judgment: Solana is fast enough, but the application layer built on top of it doesn't yet match the chain's inherent capabilities.

The gap between on-chain and off-chain trading experiences is a problem frequently discussed within the industry, yet it hasn't been systematically solved. For truly active traders, this gap is particularly glaring. "Professional traders on Solana currently have to piece together five or six, sometimes eight different applications just to complete what should be a single workflow," Marc described. "They chart in one place, execute spot trades in another, manage their portfolio elsewhere, use a different protocol for yield strategies, and perpetuals and prediction markets might be on another chain entirely. Even after all that effort, execution quality can't compare with a CEX. So they face a choice: either give up self-custody for a better experience, or keep their assets and accept inferior tools."

This dilemma is precisely the problem JTX aims to solve.

Terminal, Aggregator, Broker – Labels it doesn't want

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

Marc systematically rejected several common labels. "'Terminal' is 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 other people's infrastructure. 'Broker' suggests an intermediary stands between you and your assets. None of these are accurate."

His internal definition for JTX is a Trading Engine. "It's a professional workspace where serious traders execute trades, manage positions, and deploy capital. We aggregate all the best tools and overlay a layer of infrastructure knowledge that's hard to match on any other chain."

On the product level, 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 under development). Charting tools, order execution, portfolio management, and capital efficiency functions, all within a single account and single interface.

The advantage of self-custody needs no further explanation: on traditional centralized exchanges, assets deposited by users are effectively under the platform's control. The collapse of FTX was the most extreme risk manifestation of this model. Users' assets appeared on the books but were essentially 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 authority to touch user funds.

Regarding tools on Solana that have been developed for years, such as Jupiter, Birdeye, Axiom, Photon, Drift, and Phoenix, Marc's stance is that JTX should be seen as the interface that brings them together, not their competitor. "It allows a trader to access the best of the Solana ecosystem in one place, with institutional-grade execution quality."

The phrase "integration, not competition" sounds balanced. But considering how Jito has deeply partnered with the Solana ecosystem over the past few years, this might precisely be its consistent operating logic: build a solid foundation, let others build on top, and when the time is right, take over the interface layer directly.

Execution Quality is Jito's True Moat

Across all narratives about JTX, "execution quality" is the most frequently mentioned term.

This stems from Jito's four years of practical 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 success or failure," Marc said. "We've spent four years dissecting every case within Solana's trading pipeline. This knowledge has been directly incorporated into JTX's product design."

Here are a few specific trading pain points:

• Front-running is one of the most troublesome issues in on-chain trading. Since pending transactions are publicly visible before being included in a block, bots capable of "cutting in line" can see your buy order, buy at a higher priority fee first, and then sell to you once your trade goes through at a higher price. The next-gen block assembly architecture of BAM allows transactions to remain private before execution, structurally breaking this link.
• Failed transactions increase significantly during Solana network congestion, and fees are charged even for failures, leaving traders in the frustrating position of "paying for nothing." JTX's design goal is "execute at the price you see, or don't execute at all," fundamentally addressing silent failures.
• Priority fees: During peak times on Solana, traders often need to pay higher priority fees for their trades to be included first. How much to set, when to set it, involves a complex game-theoretic logic that requires deep experience. Jito's understanding of how Solana processes transactions under stress is directly translated into JTX's execution quality management mechanism.

Regarding CEX-grade advanced order types, including limit orders, TWAP, stop-loss/take-profit, OCO, etc., Marc stated that JTX will offer some of these at launch, with the rest rolling out gradually. He gave a candid explanation of the technical challenges: "The challenge with implementing these order types on-chain is the execution reliability they require, which most platforms can't 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/take-profit order or an OCO, we aren't just hoping the network cooperates. We know exactly how these orders interact with the trading pipeline and have designed the system architecture accordingly."

Comparison with Hyperliquid: Respect, but Different Approaches

JTX can almost inevitably be compared to Hyperliquid. The latter, leveraging its own L1, has achieved over $600 million in annualized fees, proving significant market demand for professional on-chain trading experiences.

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

He sees JTX's differentiation on 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 RWA (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 is likely more comprehensive in functionality. However, whether its trading design and experience surpass Hyperliquid will only be known after the product's official release.

"Many financial applications are evolving into multi-asset class platforms. In this dimension, JTX certainly has competitors. But we believe Jito's deep engineering speciality 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 unfamiliar readers, JTO is the governance token of the Jito ecosystem. Holders' benefits aren't just limited to voting rights; they also receive direct economic returns through protocol revenue distribution. A portion of the staking rewards generated by JitoSOL and the MEV revenue generated by the Block Engine are allocated to JTO holders. This is the basic logic of Jito's tokenomics.

The launch of JTX adds a new direct revenue stream from the consumer side to this logic. Following the announcement of JTX, 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 in the product's sustained growth and development.

Marc drew an analogy with the existing mechanisms of JitoSOL and the Jito network: "This continues the same model already running in JitoSOL and the broader Jito network—fees generated at the protocol level flow to JTO. JTX plugs into the Jito economic architecture, not as an independent, siloed product. Every transaction occurring on JTX directly contributes to the ecosystem."

Marc also highlighted the key metrics JTO holders should watch: JTX's trading volume is the top of the revenue funnel; user retention determines the sustainability of revenue; the expansion of asset and market types broadens the revenue base. "Spot first, perpetuals and prediction markets are on the roadmap. Each new market type is a new revenue dimension. JTO holders should view JTX just like they view JitoSOL or BAM—as another pillar of the market layer that generates real economic activity and returns value to the token."

In Three Years, the Distinction Between CEX and DEX Might Not Matter

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

"'Becoming more like a CEX' is actually the wrong perspective. What is 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 assessment, 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 professional trading experience lives on-chain, on Solana, and JTX is our bet on this vision."

In terms of milestones, Marc outlined the key events to track over the next 12 months: JTX's official launch in July, supporting spot trading, professional order types, and self-custody; followed by expansion to perpetuals and prediction markets, making JTX 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 in parallel.

Conclusion

From its announcement at Solana Accelerate to its official launch in July, then expansion into perpetuals and prediction markets, JTX's timeline is clear and aggressive. Whether it can carve out its place in a competitive landscape comprising Jupiter, Drift, Phoenix, and Hyperliquid ultimately depends on one thing: whether Jito's four years of accumulated infrastructure knowledge can be transformed into a perceivable difference in execution quality for ordinary traders.

If the answer is yes, this will be a rare instance of complete vertical integration from the underlying layer to the frontend in the crypto industry. If not, it will still be a noteworthy attempt, documenting the journey of an infrastructure company stepping into the spotlight.

The answer will be revealed this July.