JIP-31: Introduce a BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme

[drnick]

JIP-31: Introduce a BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme

Category: Protocol

Introduction

Jito’s BAM is a significant network upgrade for Solana. By unifying block building infrastructure it will be possible to prepare the Solana network for the future of Internet Capital Markets.

BAM’s ability to improve the Solana network will be conditional on the amount of stake utilising BAM and the degree of adoption by validators running BAM software across the network. This JIP outlines a temporary BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme that will utilise Jito protocol fees to enhance validator revenue in the early roll out of BAM.

Motivation

The massive scale adoption of BAM across the network will reduce network jitter, unify scheduling, mitigate harmful MEV and make execution maximally deterministic on the network. This is a necessary pre-requisite for the world’s capital markets to come on-chain.

Recent Jito protocol upgrades outlined in JIP-27 and JIP-28 have created the context and the mandate from Jito DAO to accelerate BAM adoption using Jito Stake Pool delegations and the infrastructure created for directed staking. JIP-28 in particular, shapes the stake delegation profile in the stake pool progressively towards BAM running validators as BAM network stake grows.

That was a strong move towards using Jito’s economic levers to generate the outcomes it needs to accelerate BAM adoption maximally. This proposal aims to shift those levers further towards maximum BAM stake growth for a period of time. It will do this by directing 100% of protocol revenue towards a BAM Early Adoption Subsidy programme, that enhances validator revenue for those utilising BAM as specified in the BAM documentation. This programme will flow network revenue in JitoSOL to eligible BAM running validators via a distribution mechanism on an epoch-by-epoch basis based on their stake weight.

This JIP will put a temporary pause on 100% buybacks currently actioned by the CSD, which will continue to operate experimental buybacks and finalise its mechanistic approach to value accrual, readying the network for decentralized value accrual activities when the desired levels of network growth have been achieved. The previous mandate for 100% value accrual will resume as the BAM subsidy programme winds down.

Key Terms

BAM Validator / BAM-running Validator
A Solana validator operating the BAM validator client and complying with the execution requirements specified in the BAM documentation.

BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme
A temporary incentive programme that redirects Jito protocol revenue to eligible BAM-running validators in order to accelerate BAM adoption during its early rollout phase.

Protocol Revenue
Fees accrued by the Jito protocol and collected by the DAO.

Subsidy Pool
The total amount of Jito protocol revenue made available for distribution to eligible BAM-running validators in a given epoch, including any reflowed unclaimed rewards from prior epochs.

Effective Stake
A mechanism-adjusted version of a validator’s raw delegated stake, used to determine its share of the subsidy pool.

Claim Window
The fixed period (10 epochs) during which a validator may claim its allocated subsidy rewards for a given epoch.

Wind-down Period
The final phase of the programme during which the fraction of protocol revenue allocated to the subsidy pool decreases linearly from 100% to 0%.

Specification

This proposal will redirect fee flows to a foundation managed address that will capitalize the distribution mechanism for validator distribution.

An epoch-by-epoch claimable merkle drop of JitoSOL will be made available to participating validators who will have the option of claiming a share of network revenue determined by their active stake weight.

Validator Eligibility

Validators do not need to be active Jito stake pool members, the subsidy programme extends to all validators over a threshold stake of 50k SOL that are running the BAM client.

Validators will need to uphold the following contract outlined in the BAM docs:

• Execute all received transactions in exact order

• Provide correct execution feedback and state information.

These are implemented by default in the BAM validator client. No additional work beyond running the client is required. Modifications that breach this contract will result in removal from the subsidy programme.

Validators running BAM for at least 3 epochs will gain eligibility and will lose eligibility, if at some point a non-BAM client is used or the above contract is broken.

The Mechanism Curve

The mechanism curve is a simple piece-wise linear function that computes an effective stake, which determines a validators share of the subsidy pool. The mechanism is designed to balance the incentive to optimise for number of BAM running validators and raw stake across the BAM validator set. The subsidy is calculated linearly up to an inflection threshold (1.5m stake), after which it is shaped by a discount factor (0.5), up to an effective stake cap of (3m). Meaning that validators above 4.5m in stake will share the same effective stake.

The following equation is used to calculate effective stake, eff(s):

Figure 1: The mechanism curve shows the distribution of effective stake vs real stake. Red dots show the distribution of the current BAM validator set.

Table 1: Example calculations of effective stake at a range of stake amounts.

The Subsidy Pool

The subsidy pool is the total Jito DAO fees available to be claimed by validators at any given epoch of the programme.

A validator’s share of the subsidy pool, and therefore the rewards claimable at any given claim window, is derived from a validator’s effective stake as a proportion of total effective stake in the pool.

The size of the subsidy pool is determined by Jito protocol revenue in that epoch, plus any rolled over unclaimed rewards that have timed out over the grace period.

For example, if a validator has 2.5M stake, giving an effective stake of 2M (see, Table 1). If there is 40M of total effective stake and the subsidy pool size is 100 JitoSOL, then the validator is due to claim 5% of the subsidy pool, or 5 JitoSOL.

Claimed and Unclaimed Rewards

BAM subsidy payments will be made available to eligible validators from the distribution mechanism for a period of 10 epochs after they are initially claimable. After this period any unclaimed rewards will be re-distributed into the next epoch’s subsidy pool.

This mechanism is utilised to reflect that some validators will run BAM out of good practice, rather than direct economic incentives and/or do not wish to claim the rewards due to operational, compliance reasons, or simply abstaining from the subsidy programme.

Consequently, 10 epochs of grace is granted to validators to become aware of the programme and claim their rewards. After this time, rewards are reflowed to participating validators. There are no exemptions to this rule, the DAO is not creating any function for appeals, or deliberations regarding claiming rewards. This is an entirely mechanistic DAO function and all questions, queries and edge cases should be deliberated thoroughly before the programme is initiated.

Programme Length and Wind Down

Figure 2 : The proposed timeline of the subsidy with programmatic wind down at t-12 weeks from programme close (end Q3) assuming execution on the 12th January.

The BAM Subsidy Programme will last for three quarters of 2026 (Q1 to Q3). In the major phase of the programme (Q1-Q2), 100% of protocol revenue collected by the DAO will be distributed to the subsidy pool. In Q3, the programme will wind down from 100% to 0% on an epoch-by-epoch basis over the final ~12 weeks of the programme (beginning first week of July). The necessary conversion from weeks to Solana epochs and the exact Solana epoch of the programme commencement post vote execution will be published on the forum.

Programme Modification

The DAO has ultimate authority to change fee usage and this could be used to alter the duration, size or other elements related to this programme. Any changes would require a full JIP through the conventional governance process, including a 14-day discussion period and affirmative vote exceeding quorum requirements. Jito Foundation contributors will make reasonable efforts to alert validators if a programme modifying JIP is proposed.

Benefits and Risks

Benefits

• Utilises Jito Protocol Revenue maximally for stake growth in the early adoption phase of BAM.

• Trends the Solana network towards the optimal execution context in alignment with the Internet Capital Markets vision.

• Minimises harmful MEV and maximal extraction strategies on the network.

Risks

• Temporarily moves protocol revenue usage away from value accrual strategies into a ‘Growth’ mode for the network. Some market participants may prefer value accrual modes of protocol action.

• If it fails to drive meaningful stake adoption, it risks being an inefficient use of DAO funds. This is mitigated by the Programme Modification path outlined in the specification.

Outcomes

• 100% of protocol revenue is directed towards incentivising BAM adoption across the whole Solana validator set.

• Initiation of a BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme for Q1 through Q3 of 2026, unless formal programme modification is triggered.

[Ian]

I view JIP-31 as a pragmatic, time-bounded mechanism to accelerate BAM adoption across Solana validators.

The proposal temporarily reallocates protocol revenue to validators running BAM, with clearly defined eligibility, compliance requirements, and a structured wind-down period. Effective stake caps and discounts limit concentration, while still incentivizing meaningful + active participation. Using the past week’s protocol revenue of $140k, assuming 50% shocks either way, validators will collectively earn between $2.1mm to $6.3mm throughout the duration of this 37 week program.

At this stage, reinvesting protocol revenue into adoption is economically sensible. Future protocol revenue and long-term value accrual are likely to be highly dependent on broad BAM adoption, making immediate-term deployment of fees toward validator adoption more impactful than buybacks. Additionally, since the program was announced as this JIP was posted, 15 new operators have began running BAM, brining a 1.78mm SOL of new stake, taking BAM’s total network stake to 9.2%. These early adopters signal signs of further adoption driven by the program’s incentives.

snapshot at time of writing

snapshot from day of proposal going live

Overall, this is a defensible and timely use of protocol revenue.

[drnick]

JIP-31 has reached quorum and passed and will execute on the 15th January. This will trigger the initiation of the BAM Subsidy Programme. Monitor this thread for further details and updates.

Review the vote and on-chain instructions HERE

[drnick]

BAM Early Adopter Subsidy Programme — Validator Information

This post is a technical companion to the JIP and is intended for validators who want to understand eligibility, timelines, and the on-chain claiming flow.

Summary

• Subsidy rewards are distributed epoch-by-epoch to eligible validators running BAM.

• Rewards are claimable as JitoSOL via an epoch-specific MerkleDistributor (the same programme used for the JTO airdrop and recent SIMD votes).

• Your reward share is pro-rata to effective stake (mechanism curve), not raw stake.

• You have a 10-epoch claim window per epoch’s rewards. Unclaimed rewards are reflowed (recycled) into a later epoch pool.

Eligibility

A validator is eligible in epoch (t) if all of the following are true:

1. Stake threshold: validator stake

2. BAM runtime: validator has been running BAM for at least 3 consecutive epochs

3. Compliance: validator is not blacklisted and is compliant with BAM’s execution requirements:

   • execute received transactions in exact order

   • provide correct execution feedback and state information

Notes:

• The programme is open to all validators (not limited to Jito stake pool validators).

• If a validator stops running BAM or violates requirements, it loses eligibility until it satisfies requirements again.

How the subsidy pool is formed each epoch

Each epoch has a subsidy pool generated from protocol fees denominated in JitoSOL.

• During the main phase, 100% of protocol revenue is allocated to the pool.

• During the wind-down period, the allocation fraction decreases linearly from 100% to 0%.

Additionally, expired unclaimed rewards are recycled into later pools.

Operationally, the “keeper” sweeps accumulated revenue into the distributor according to the programme schedule.

Note: Jito has multiple revenue streams that will contribute to the subsidy pool. Due to the nature of their distribution some fees will have a delay, for example, tiprouter distributed fees land the epoch after they are earned. For ease of accounting, each epoch of the BAM subsidy pool will comprise all fees attributed to and collected by the DAO within the boundaries of that epoch, rather than strictly the epoch in which the fees were earned.

Claim window, expiry, and reflow of unclaimed rewards

• For each epoch’s distribution, claims are open for 10 epochs.

• If you do not claim within the window, the unclaimed amount is reflowed into a later epoch pool and redistributed to claimants.

Example:

• Epoch 100: you’re allocated 5 JitoSOL

• Epochs 101–109: you can claim at any time

• Epoch 110: if still unclaimed, that amount is recycled into a later pool

There are no appeals/exemptions, this is a fully mechanistic rule.

The Initial Epochs

The early epochs include an implementation window as claim contracts are finalised and deployed. The DAO executed mid-epoch 911 and will accumulate rewards from DAO execution to epoch end. 912 and 913 are full epochs where 100% of protocol revenue accumulates in the subsidy pool. The first claimable window will be initialised early in 914 and from that point on, will be claimable in the subsequent epoch until programme end. There is a 10 epoch claim window after which rewards will be clawed back to the BAM subsidy pool, where they will top up BAM running and claiming validators.

Distribution

The programme runs an epoch-lagged distribution, which is typical for stake-based systems:

High-level timeline

• Rewards for epoch (N-1) become claimable early in epoch (N).

Keeper workflow (early in epoch (N))

1. Wait ~25% into epoch (N) to ensure epoch (N-1) stake + eligibility data is finalized.

2. Fetch eligible validators list from BAM API (or equivalent source):

   • not blacklisted

   • running BAM ≥ 3 epochs

   • stake ≥ 50k SOL

3. Compute each validator’s effective stake and the total effective stake.

4. Convert SOL revenue to JitoSOL as needed (FeeReceiver → stake/deposit to JitoSOL).

5. Apply wind-down schedule (if applicable) to determine subsidy_amount for the epoch.

6. Build Merkle tree of ((validator, amount, index)) leaves.

7. Create epoch MerkleDistributor and transfer JitoSOL into it.

8. Publish Merkle data (root + proofs) via API and/or a public bucket.

Note:

• Because the keeper runs slightly after the epoch boundary, a small amount of early epoch (N) fees may be included in epoch (N-1) rewards. This effect is expected to be small and averages out over time.

On-chain claiming

1. Call API: GET https://kobe.mainnet.jito.network/api/v1/claim/mainnet/{epoch}/{validator_id} where validator_id is the identity pubkey of the validator.

2. Receive: { amount, index, proof, root, distributor_address }

3. Submit on-chain Claim(proof, amount, index) transaction

4. Program transfers JitoSOL to your token account and records ClaimStatus to prevent double-claims

5. Funds will land in your JitoSOL ATA associated with your validator ID

The following CLI is available for validators to use in the claim process:

cargo r -p jito-bam-boost-cli -- \  
  bam-boost \ 
  merkle-distributor \ 
  claim \ 
--network mainnet \ 
--epoch <EPOCH> \ 
--rpc-url <RPC_URL> \ 
--signer <PATH_TO_KEYPAIR> \ 
--commitment confirmed \ 
--jito-bam-boost-program-id BoostxbPp2ENYHGcTLYt1obpcY13HE4NojdqNWdzqSSb

FAQ

Q: Do I need to be in the Jito stake pool?
No. Any validator meeting eligibility criteria can participate.

Q: When do I start earning?
After running BAM for 3 epochs, you become eligible. Rewards are then calculated for each eligible epoch and become claimable on an epoch lag (typically the next epoch).

Q: How do I estimate my rewards?
Use:

• your stake (s)

• compute effective stake (only necessary if above 1.5m stake)

• estimate total effective stake among eligible BAM validators, your % share of the subsidy pool.

• multiply by the epoch’s pool size

Q: What happens if I forget to claim?
You have 10 epochs. After that, your unclaimed amount expires and is reflowed back into the subsidy pool where it will be distributed to the next epoch’s eligible validators.

Available Data

The following data will be made available to validators via an API endpoint throughout the subsidy programme.

• epoch number

• total pool

• eligible validator set size

• total effective stake

• merkle root + distributor address

• proofs/amounts accessible via API (and/or a public bucket)

Validators are requested to use this thread, to ask questions or raise issues with the subsidy programme. This thread will be the source of truth for updates throughout the programme. The FAQ in this post will be updated periodically.

Review the repo here: GitHub - jito-foundation/jito-bam-boost-cli: Jito BAM Boost Program CLI