Jito's Token Launch Skyrockets Marinade's MNDE to Record Highs

• JTO Token Launch Fuels Growth in Solana Ecosystem
• Impacts of JTO Launch on Marinade
• Jito's Value to Investors
• Comparisons with Lido
• The Role of Liquidity in Market Repricing

JTO Token Launch Fuels Growth in Solana Ecosystem

The successful launch of the JTO token by Jito has positively impacted several entities in the Solana$104 5.03% (SOL) ecosystem, including direct competitor, Marinade$0.328 -0.63%. Marinade and Jito both issue Liquid Staking Tokens (LST) for SOL investors. This week has seen the governance token of Marinade reach record highs.

Impacts of JTO Launch on Marinade

The aggressive rally witnessed by Marinade, with MNDE doubling to $0.50 within a few hours, coincided with Jito's JTO token launch. At the moment, Marinade has a fully diluted valuation of $500 million, compared to Jito's $3.5 billion valuation. Despite Jito being a smaller entity with a Total Value Locked (TVL) of $460 million compared to Marinade's $737 million TVL, its valuation is higher. This has led to discussions among Marinade's community on Discord, with investors speculating the reasons why MNDE lags behind JTO.

Jito's Value to Investors

Jito's advantage of having a block building engine and MEV infrastructure could be one of the reasons why investors place a higher value on this smaller protocol, according to Barrett Williams, the founder of the Solana-based futures trading venue, Cypher. Moreover, the airdrop of JTO on Thursday indirectly increased the wealth of MNDE holders by inciting the market to reconsider how it was pricing the Marinade protocol, as pointed out by Ally Zach, a research analyst with Messari.

Investors were likely speculating that both tokens, JTO and MNDE, would be valued similarly in time, suggests Zach. The airdrop of JTO, which distributed around 4,900 JTO tokens to approximately 10,000 wallets, prompted an influx of new investors.

Comparisons with Lido

Jito and Marinade are both often compared to Lido (LDO), the most well-known and largest LST protocol in crypto. Lido has dominated most LST activity on Ethereum$2,315 -2.42% (ETH) but has had difficulty reproducing this success on Solana. In mid-October, coinciding with the beginning of the latest Solana rally, Lido exited the ecosystem. This action created an opportunity for Marinade and Jito, who are both steadfast in their commitment to Solana.

The Role of Liquidity in Market Repricing

InfraRAY, the head of partnerships for the Solana-based DEX Raydium, suggests that the market repricing and mechanics might also be influenced by liquidity. With only a certain number of JTO tokens in circulation following the airdrop, liquidity is limited. Despite 95% of the current distribution having been claimed, and therefore in circulation, it still only represents a fraction of JTO's total supply. This scarcity of tokens increases their value.

Edited by Jonathan Stoker