Jito, a liquid staking protocol in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector that operates within the Solana (SOL) ecosystem, has initiated the distribution of its highly anticipated airdrop. The airdrop, which took place on Thursday, involved the distribution of more than 90 million of Jito’s native tokens to early participants who contributed to establishing the network.
Jito’s digital asset, JTO, also functions as the governance token within the protocol. Following the airdrop, it was listed on numerous Solana-based exchanges at an initial price of $1.20. However, the price of the token rose to nearly $2 as trading commenced. Jito trades at $2.94, up nearly 78% in the last 24 hours. The total value of the distributed assets is now estimated to be around $225 million.
The airdrop distribution by Jito varied for each user, with the smallest amount being 4,941 tokens and the largest reaching 104,391 tokens. The distribution was based on the users’ engagement with the protocol through its liquid staking token (LST), known as jitoSOL.
The Jito Foundation Keeps Moving Forward with Its Business Plan
Earlier in the week, the Jito Foundation, a non-profit organization that manages the network, announced the eligibility and allocation plan for the airdrop. As per the plan, 80% of the airdrop was allocated to users who took part in the Jito Points program, which ran from January to November. Wallet addresses that held a minimum of 100 Jito Points before November 25 were eligible for the airdrop.
Furthermore, 15 million of the assets were distributed to validators who ran the Jito-Solana client during the epochs 366 to 536 timeframe, specifically those who participated in at least one epoch between 527 and 536. Validators who were early adopters and actively contributed to the launch of the Jito-Solana client were given a larger token allocation.
The remaining tokens were set aside for Jito MEV searchers who used the Jito Network’s suite of MEV programs. These searchers were granted a total of 5 million JTO tokens. As per data from DefiLlama, the platform is currently the second-largest DeFi protocol on the Solana blockchain, with a total value locked (TVL) of $456.14 million.
The protocol has completed the distribution of tokens via airdrop. From the date of token generation, all tokens that are eligible for claim will be accessible for 18 months. However, if any tokens remain unclaimed after this period, they will be transferred to the DAO treasury.
