Jito Surpasses $1.3 Billion TVL Amidst Anticipation of Restaking

Jito, a liquid staking pool on the Solana blockchain, has recently announced a significant milestone. Its total value locked (TVL) has exceeded 10 million Solana (SOL). With Solana’s current price of $132.11, the number equals a staggering $1.32 billion.

This development strengthens Jito’s position in the Solana ecosystem. It also indicates a growing interest in the protocol.

Jito’s Restaking Venture

Historically, Jito reached a higher TVL in fiat—approximately $1.86 billion—on April 1. However, it’s critical to recognize that these figures are subject to the fluctuating nature of cryptocurrency values.

Should Solana revisit its peak of $208 witnessed earlier this year, Jito’s TVL could escalate to around $2.08 billion. If so, it would set a new record for the platform.

Read more: Top 7 Projects on Solana With Massive Potential

Amid this financial growth, there is a buzz in the crypto community that Jito is venturing into a new domain—restaking protocols. Sources close to the development have revealed that Jito is making strides toward enhancing Solana’s capabilities by integrating restaking services. Yet, Jito’s team has not confirmed the reports.

Indeed, restaking has been a new buzz in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. According to the data from CoinGecko, the “Restaking” category has a cumulative market capitalization of $8,64 billion at the time of writing.

Restaking is a new feature introduced on the Ethereum network that allows validators to earn extra rewards by securing additional services on top of the network’s base layer. EigenLayer is the project that made this trend popular and has a TVL of $14.65 billion as of May 2, based on data from DefiLlama.

Given the potential of restaking, it is possible that Solana’s builders are considering bringing this feature to their network. Currently, the existing restaking protocol in Solana is Picasso. This protocol permits “the staking of SOL as well as various receipt tokens from SOL staking platforms.”

However, the restaking sector has its own challenges. A recent Coinbase report highlighted potential financial and security risks associated with active validated services (AVS). These services may complicate the understanding of financial and security implications, potentially elevating risk factors.

The viability of initial AVS offerings also remains uncertain. Some liquid restaking token (LRT) platforms possibly face unsustainable fee structures if AVS returns fail to cover operational costs.

Moreover, choosing which AVS to support introduces additional complexity for stakeholders. This could also muddy the waters in risk assessment.

Read more: Ethereum Restaking: What Is It And How Does It Work?

“At this point, a lot of LRT models have not yet been fully clarified. However, for there to be a single LRT per project, all token holders within a given protocol would presumably be subject to uniform AVS incentives and slashing conditions. The design of these mechanisms are likely to vary across LRT providers,” analysts at Coinbase wrote.

Additionally, providers of LRT may be tempted to chase the highest possible yields. This motive will potentially expose users to higher levels of risk without a comprehensive understanding of the implications.