BitGo adds Jupiter as a Solana staking option for custody clients

What happened

BitGo has added Jupiter, the Solana trading and DeFi platform, as a validator option for its institutional custody clients, the custodian announced on Wednesday. Clients can delegate SOL that already sits in their BitGo accounts to a validator operated by Jupiter rather than moving the tokens to a separate staking provider.

The option is open to what BitGo described as eligible institutional clients, who were directed to contact their BitGo representative to use it. BitGo's announcement said fees may apply but did not publish a schedule, and neither company specified whether the "Jupiter x BitGo validator" refers to Jupiter's existing main validator or to a separate one established for the arrangement.

BitGo also stated that Jupiter runs the validator as an independent third party and that the custodian does not control validator performance. Unstaking is subject to Solana's standard deactivation period, the usual wait before delegated SOL becomes transferable again.

Why it matters

Staking has become a routine request from institutions holding SOL, but operational questions, approvals, custody, record-keeping, often determine whether a firm participates at all. Abel Seow, a managing director and head of APAC sales at BitGo, said staking is an important part of how institutions manage their SOL holdings and "needs to fit into their existing custody and approval processes." Keeping assets inside a custody account removes the transfer step that otherwise sits between an institution and a validator.

For Jupiter, the arrangement extends its validator business to custody clients. COO Kash Dhanda described running a validator as "how we invest in that base layer" of Solana, and said the BitGo partnership brings institutional SOL in "on terms those institutions already trust." Jupiter's institutional staking page had already noted that native delegation works from any custodian supporting Solana staking, so the new element is the integration and referral path rather than a new capability.

What the data shows

Jupiter's main validator carried about 9.72 million SOL in active stake as of Wednesday afternoon, worth roughly $993 million at a SOL price of $102.13, according to on-chain data tracked by StakeWiz. By Unchained's count of Solana's vote-account data, it ranked fifth among about 660 active validators and held roughly 2.24% of all active stake.

Jupiter keeps 5% of the inflation rewards its delegators earn and takes nothing from MEV tips, according to its staking documentation. StakeWiz estimated its yield at 4.72%, against a stake-weighted network average of 3.62%. Helius, second by stake, held about 16.66 million SOL on Wednesday, charges no commission and showed a 5.01% yield on StakeWiz.

In BitGo's quarterly filing for the period ended June 30, Solana accounted for 3.9% of the $65.2 billion in assets on its platform and 17% of its $11.9 billion in staked assets.

Background

BitGo was already offering SOL staking before this week. The firm named SOL Strategies as a validator partner in April 2025, added Helius that July and signed HashKey Cloud on Oct. 6. Jupiter, best known for swaps, perpetual futures and lending on Solana, now sits alongside those custody-oriented names.

BitGo has been widening what institutions can do with assets it holds. Last week, Unchained reported that bitcoin and ether in BitGo custody will back margin loans for perpetual futures for some Kalshi Prime clients.

What to watch

Two details remain open: the fee schedule BitGo referenced without publishing, and whether the validator represents new capacity or Jupiter's existing main validator. Also worth watching is whether other custodians follow with similar integrations, and whether Solana's share of BitGo's staked assets shifts as custody-native staking becomes easier to reach.

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