JIP-30: Ensure JitoSOL Participation in Solana Level Governance 

JIP - Official
1

JIP-30: Ensure JitoSOL Participation in Solana Level Governance

Category: Treasury, Strategy

Abstract

Solana protocol governance is undergoing a significant upgrade that will expand and decentralize network control to all stakers. This JIP sets forward a package of work, budget request of $1m in JitoSOL, and process changes that will ensure that JitoSOL can participate in Solana network governance with total equivalence to natively staked SOL. An NCN-based system will be built to allow the snapshotting of JitoSOL balances along with associated governance tooling that will level-up the Jito DAOs capabilities and will lead towards the establishment of enhanced core public good governance infrastructure for the Solana Network at large.

Motivation

The recent network level votes on Solana have been some of the highest turnout (74% of staked SOL in the case of SIMD-228) and most impressive examples of decentralized governance ever, not just in the crypto industry, but anywhere. However, these early votes have highlighted that stakers themselves were more removed from the governance process than they should be, relying on validators to vote on their behalf.

Following community feedback on these votes, a kick-off meeting at Solana Accelerate earlier in the year triggered a wave of work that will shift the protocol towards a state where stakers can choose to take ownership of their own votes from their validators, overriding them if they wish. This radically decentralizes network control towards stakers and it is crucial that JitoSOL holders have equivalent rights to native stakers of SOL.

The recent draft of the Solana Constitution that is currently being collaboratively written through a network level consultation has a placeholder process that will allow validators and LSTs to consult with their stakers in advance of the on-chain validator vote. This JIP will establish the tooling required for JitoSOL holders to signal their desired outcome in Solana Governance Proposals and the processes that will convert that signal into on-chain votes via the stake pool. This will be accomplished with a $1m JitoSOL budget, any remaining funds of which will be returned to the DAO.

Key Terms

SGP / Solana Governance Proposal: The network-level governance motion voted on by validators (and, post-upgrade, by stakers directly).

Equivalence Guarantee: Design goal that a JitoSOL holder’s governance rights are at least functionally equal to those of a native SOL staker for any Solana-level vote.

NCN Snapshot System: An NCN-based system that produces 1:1, time-bounded snapshots of JitoSOL balances across wallets, custodians, LPs, vaults, and other DeFi wrappers without double counting.

Signal Aggregator: Off/near-chain service (verifiable, reproducible) where JitoSOL holders cast their preferences for a given SGP; emits a signed tally.

Vote-Conversion Relay: Mechanism that converts the aggregated JitoSOL signal into the stake pool’s on-chain vote (or per-validator instructions) for the SGP, following the Constitution-aligned process.

Custodian Attestation: A standardized proof (API + signed message) from qualified custodians reporting JitoSOL balances and, where applicable, sub-account splits for governance.

Snapshot Epoch: The precise block/slot/epoch used for balance capture to prevent vote-buying by last-minute movements; includes grace and challenge windows.

Governance subDAO (Gov-subDAO): A narrowly scoped subDAO for funding and overseeing the build, audits, and operations of the tooling.

Public Good: Tooling provided to the wider network, that is open-source and free to use by all.

Trigger Quorum: The threshold amount of participating JitoSOL required to trigger the vote conversion.

Specification

The high level goals of this JIP are:

  • Establish a Governance subDAO that will fund the build of tooling that will allow JitoSOL voting to take place and other governance tooling that is required to enhance Jito DAOs function as a leading DAO in the crypto industry.

  • Forge the Jito DAO processes that will align with the Solana Constitution when it is ratified in SGP-1 (pending successful passing of the proposal). Including, the mechanisms that will take JitoSOL signal and convert it to on-chain vote via the stake pool.

  • Ensure that JitoSOL has equivalence guarantees to natively staked SOL in all governance related activity going forward.

Build Requirements:

  • Utilize Jito’s NCN architecture to produce a 1:1 signal aggregator of all JitoSOL on the Solana network including non-custodially held JitoSOL, but also JitoSOL residing in DeFi, liquidity pools, vaults and under qualified custodian control.

    • Set a broader target to extend this infrastructure to JTO and other SPL tokens to utilize the tooling and provide an agile snapshot voting oriented system for the Solana network.

  • Build an expressive foundation for governance infrastructure that will ensure that JTO governance utility is future proofed for future governance activity, such as governing BAM plugin inclusion and emerging needs of structures such as the Community subDAO.

  • Ensure that qualified custodians can participate in SGPs and future JitoSOL and JTO related governance activities via custodian attestation.

  • A vote-conversion relay system that passes vote signal to the Jito Stake Pool

  • Integrate into the jito.network website and any other websites that will improve JitoSOL and JTO governance utility.

Governance subDAO:

  • Transfer a total of $1m in JitoSOL to a 2 of 3 multi-sig initially manned by a foundation representative and two volunteer delegates, with the scope of ad hoc spend on governance tooling as it is required, with immediate spending goals of rapidly shipping the tooling required for JitoSOL participation in SGP-1.

    • Reporting of all spend will be declared periodically to the DAO with clear demonstration of effective spend and high quality results.

  • A limited mandate of Governance tooling and JitoSOL Solana Governance process formation in the outset, ensuring full control of Jito governance related decisions remains at the Jito DAO level.

Stake Pool Trigger Mechanism:

  • The NCN based voting system will generate a snapshot of JitoSOL holdings 3 epochs before the validator votes for an SGP (or the final window as determined by the consultation exercise leading to the constitution). This will trigger the beginning of the JitoSOL voting process.

  • At the termination of the JitoSOL voting window (immediately before the validator vote) votes will be tallied and relayed to the StakePool, where a full bloc vote will be triggered on behalf of JitoSOL holders.

  • This will occur only if the amount of JitoSOL turnout hits a threshold trigger quorum of 10% of JitoSOL TVL.

Note: the exact vote to Stake Pool mechanics may vary due to engineering requirements that may surface in the build, the governance subDAO has as part of the mandate of this JIP to alter these flows in order to realise the build.

Benefits / Risks

Benefits

  • Voter Enfranchisement: Gives JitoSOL holders direct, equivalent say in Solana protocol governance (parity with native SOL).

  • Network Legitimacy: Aligns with the emerging Solana governance model (high turnout SGPs) and reduces over-reliance on validator-only voting.

  • DAO Leadership & Public Goods: Tooling (snapshot, anti-double-count, custodial attestations) becomes reusable infra for the broader ecosystem.

  • Custodian Coverage: Makes large held balances count (with attestations), boosting representativeness without sacrificing security.

  • Future-proof Governance: Lays groundwork for JTO/JitoSOL governance of BAM plugins, subDAOs, and other protocol decisions using the same rails.

Risks / Mitigations

  • Technical Complexity (LPs, vaults, wrappers): Accurate unwinding and anti-double-counting is hard.

    • Mitigation: Formal ruleset, unit/integration tests against common DeFi wrappers, third-party audit, challenge window, and a public reconciliation report per vote.

  • JitoSOL weights and voting miscounts: Snapshot and custodian data introduce points of trust.

    • Mitigation: Utilise an NCN to decentralize vote counting and minimize trust model weaknesses in the design and build.

  • Governance Drift / Misalignment: A governance subDAO could drift the locus of control of the DAO towards sub structures.

    • Mitigation: Narrowly scoped mandate for purely governance tooling spend and integration of JitoSOL into SGP governance.

Outcomes

  • JitoSOL equivalency with staked SOL in all governance related activity, with JitoSOL holders fully represented in network level governance.

  • Robust tooling that levels-up Jito DAOs capabilities enhancing JitoSOL and ultimately JTO governance utility.

  • Additional tooling for the network cementing Jito’s position as core Solana growth infrastructure.

Costs

$1m in JitoSOL, with any unspent funds to be returned to the DAO after all tooling has been built.

1 Like
2

Will there be an required amount of JitoSol a person must hold in order for them to vote, and the snapshot of their address and the JitoSol they are holding, will there be a requirement to hold however many or just holding the JitoSol up to a certain day before voting occurs, I.E. you vote on June 1st, but you must still be holding the JitoSol and have held it for say 45 days prior to voting? Any amount of time can be used, I am used 45 days as an example here.

1 Like
3

We will be trying to mirror the protocol level governance dynamic as much as possible. In that scenario there aren’t any restrictions or threshold on the amount of SOL held in order to participate in the vote, so I don’t think that would be necessary here.

Similarly, with hold time prior to the snapshot. There would most likely be a specific slot at which holdings are calculated to generate stake weight of the vote and that would be the initial mechanism. However, we will have local sovereignty over how we run the JitoSOL governance dynamic, so if at some point some kind of longer lookback becomes valuable then we can do it.

Do you have a particular scenario in mind for when that would be usedful?

Our goal would be to get the best signal possible from JitoSOL holders and the governance subDAO here would be charged with optimising that experience.

2 Likes
4

What I had in mind was something similar to how shareholder voting works. They usually take a “snapshot” of who held shares as of a specific record date, and only those holders can vote on proposals. The idea there is to prevent last minute share-buying just to influence a vote, which sometimes happens in crypto too when people rush in right before a snapshot.

If that makes sense?

1 Like
5

It does make sense yes. I think we will track the Solana Governance system 1:1 at the moment. Which is currently being deliberated at the network level. At the moment an NCN based snapshot is taken at a specific slot in an epoch and then the vote begins at the next epoch for a period of 3 epochs. We will have license to modify our own internal snapshot governance processes in advance of the network votes and can do something like this if we think it will yield better signal that will be relayed to the stake pool.

1 Like