What is Restaking?

It's putting capital that already secures the base chain to work securing additional services on top, earning additional yield in return for additional risk. On Solana, Jito (Re)staking is the flagship version: you deposit SPL tokens like JitoSOL into vaults, and the vault stakes out those tokens on behalf of external services requiring economic security.

It's like a car: you bought the car for commuting, but on weekends you use it as a rideshare. One asset generates two revenues, with additional wear-and-tear and a new set of crash scenarios as well. Restaking is the same: Your staked SOL used for base staking also serves as collateral for other protocols, and that second job comes with additional compensation as well as additional obligations.

How Jito (Re)staking Works Technically

There are three parts to the flow.

• Deposit: You deposit an SPL asset (mostly JitoSOL, Jito's liquid staking token that yields approximately 6-8% base staking yield) into a restaking vault.
• Claim: The vault gives you a VRT, a Vault Receipt Token that is a liquid claim on your deposited assets, so that you're not stuck with idle capital.
• Stake: The vault stakes on behalf of NCNs, which are Node Consensus Networks- groups of nodes running a set of services that need economic security. These services include oracles, bridges, and other services that cannot use Solana's validator set for economic security.

Each NCN defines its own revenue stream and slashing terms. While slashing does not yet exist on Solana as a base-level feature, restaked positions agree to NCN-level slashing. If you deposit 100 JitoSOL (which costs $8,000+, since 1 JitoSOL is worth more than 1 SOL) then you earn base staking rewards and you also earn NCN rewards, if any (the rate and existence of these rewards are determined by the NCN and may be non-trivial).

How Restaking Compares to EigenLayer

EigenLayer is the progenitor: the Ethereum category was created by EigenLayer with the AVS (Active-Validated Services) playing the role of NCNs, and it has seen far more capital locked and more services operating through 2024-25. (Solana's approach has less TVL, but also fewer running services). In terms of design, the architectures are the same- staked capital that secures external services; liquid claims on stake; and the introduction of service-level slashing risk. But in terms of utility, the key difference is maturity: EigenLayer's AVS services have already been operating for a while now; Solana's NCNs have been less active.

So the key question is- is EigenLayer a model to follow, or are Solana's NCNs a different approach to a different problem?

Why Restaking Matters

Restaking exists to lower the barrier to entry to secure new Solana services. Creating a new token that people are going to stake takes years; restaking means that these services can immediately rent security from existing staked assets. So restaking is important for teams that are working on Solana's infrastructure stack, and are looking to bootstrap security for new services.

The other side is, what about your tokens, the JitoSOL sitting in Phantom waiting to earn a staking yield of some percent per year- what if you could get that same staking yield plus additional incentives in exchange for putting your JitoSOL tokens into a Jito vault and getting a VRT in exchange, which you can sell anytime?

Restaking means stacking three different risks- smart contract risk in the vault, the risk that the operators in the NCN don't do their job, and the risk that you'll get slashed. So be careful to balance your exposure.

I think the advice from Ethereum is still applicable: Never restake more tokens than you are okay losing.

There are many dashboards that track the NCNs (Solana Compass and the like) and plenty of resources out there from the Jito and Helius teams. Be sure to read any NCN's terms carefully before you commit to the arrangement.

Will I lose my staking rewards?

Restaking puts the principal at risk under certain NCN slashing conditions- it does not touch the base staking rewards, which are still being earned while your position is active. So the slashing risk is all in the new layer, and not in the Solana base staking (which doesn't even have slashing today).