We’re building a transaction inclusion service with Fragmetric and we’d like DFC to invest.
There is a dire need for an alternative transaction inclusion service. Jito is a single point of failure. Because >90% of stake runs the Jito client, when Jito doesn’t work, the chain doesn’t work.
Multiple large players have reached out to us asking us to build an alternative, independent transaction inclusion service and we believe that now is the time to do so.
The size of the problem is self-evidently very very large and will become even larger with Solana poised to become the number one chain for retail onchain activity.
https://solana.blockworksresearch.com/?dashboard=sol-dex€
Sanctum’s transaction inclusion service has four components. At a high level, these are:
Jito has a large moat because they control the Jito-Solana client. To build an alternative solution, one has to 1) build an alternative client and 2) convince validators to switch over from Jito client. This is very hard.
There are three things we can do to surmount this moat.
Firstly, we are working with the Firedancer team to modify the Firedancer code to support multiple generalised block packers at the same time. This means that validators don’t have to migrate to the Sanctum client (a difficult ask); all they have to do is enable receiving Sanctum’s blocks in the FD validator config file. This greatly reduces the switching costs.
Lastly, we’re not going to take on Jito directly. Instead of starting with MEV bundles, we’re building a market for blockspace futures: allowing protocols to guarantee transaction inclusion by buying guaranteed blockspace in advance.
In the fullness of time, our transaction inclusion service can and will include bundles as well, making us a direct Jito competitor. These bundles will be placed at the bottom after guaranteed blockspace so they don’t displace or reorder guaranteed transactions.