Jito, Solana’s Infrastructure Powerhouse, Bets Big on a Consumer Trading App After a Record Year
For the past four years, Jito has quietly built the plumbing for Solana’s blockchain network. But after a breakout 2025, the crypto infrastructure firm is stepping out of the shadows. In July, it plans to launch JTX, a consumer-facing trading app that marks a strategic pivot from backend services to direct retail engagement.
The app will initially offer spot trading on Solana, with plans to integrate perpetual futures and prediction markets down the line. It’s a bold move into a space that has produced some of crypto’s biggest success stories—but also one that’s becoming increasingly crowded with well-funded competitors.
Jito CEO and co-founder Lucas Bruder told Fortune that the company now holds “well north of $100 million” in cash across its two entities, a war chest built on a surge of activity following Donald Trump’s memecoin launch on Solana in January 2025. In the week after that event alone, Jito raked in nearly $6 million in revenue processing trades, according to data from Blockworks.
That momentum caught the attention of investors like Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, which poured $50 million into Jito last October. Now, flush with capital, the firm wants to build an app that reflects its own vision for onchain trading, rather than relying on third-party platforms that use its infrastructure.
“We don’t really want to wait for other people to make things better above us,” Bruder said. “We’re just going to go and do it ourselves.”
JTX will launch with spot trading on Solana. Later, it plans to integrate perpetual futures through a partnership with Solana-based exchange Phoenix, a market currently dominated by Hyperliquid. The app will also offer prediction markets via a yet-to-launch Solana-based platform, Bruder added.
This isn’t Jito’s first consumer product. The firm already offers a liquid staking token—a wrapper for yield-bearing Solana tokens—with a market cap exceeding $800 million. But the app represents a more direct challenge to the status quo, and a bid to avoid the fate of earlier infrastructure firms that raised big money but failed to deliver on their promises.
“I think we’ll see a lot more infra companies either completely pivot into more retail-facing applications, or you’ll see more start to dogfood and build stuff on top of their current [infra],” Bruder said. “You can fall into this trap—the saying ‘build it and they will come.’ If you’re kind of just waiting around for others to come, and you’re relying on third parties that have their own priorities … it puts you in a weird place.”
Industry Reactions
“Jito is smart to move now while they’ve got momentum and cash,” said Sarah Chen, a blockchain analyst at Delphi Digital. “But consumer trading is brutal. You’re up against UX giants like Robinhood and native DeFi apps that already have loyal users. Execution is everything.”
“This is just another infrastructure firm trying to play in retail and pretending it’s a natural step,” said Mark Torres, a former DeFi product manager and now a crypto consultant. “They raised $50 million, and instead of doubling down on what made them relevant, they’re chasing hype. Prediction markets? Please. That’s a graveyard. They’re going to burn cash trying to compete with apps that actually understand consumers.”
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Elena Rodriguez, a Solana ecosystem developer. “Jito has solid tech and a real user base from their staking product. If they can bring that same reliability to a trading app, they could carve out a niche. But they need to move fast and not overcomplicate it.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com