Introducing Injective: a Sector-Specific Blockchain Built For Finance

Injective is an interoperable layer-one blockchain for building next-generation DeFi applications. Built with Cosmos SDK, and interoperable with prominent L1s (including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and more, through a recent Wormhole integration), Injective is the premier blockchain to build premier finance dApps. Find out more about Injective in Everstake’s overview.

What Is Injective (INJ)? 

Injective (INJ) is a blockchain for cross-chain DeFi products based on Cosmos SDK and the Tendermint consensus architecture. The team positions it as “the blockchain built for finance.” The Injective cross-chain bridging infrastructure is compatible with IBC-enabled blockchains, Ethereum, and non-EVM chains like Solana. Injective offers developers an interoperable smart contract platform based on CosmWasm with advanced multi-chain capabilities. On top of that, Injective enables automatic smart contract execution, which serves as a robust framework to create innovative use cases.

The blockchain supports over 10,000 TPS and provides instant finality.

Injective’s main feature is its core financial infrastructure primitives, such as the native decentralized MEV-resistant on-chain order book, that can be leveraged for creating a wide range of DeFi applications: decentralized derivatives and spot exchanges, lending protocols, prediction markets, and more.

Injective’s mainnet was launched in 2021 and saw continuous development: the team created open-source tools for app developers, launched cross-chain bridges to other blockchains, and developed their own products like the decentralized spot and derivatives exchange Helix (formerly known as Injective Pro). For now, the Injective ecosystem includes 100+ projects. You can learn about them here.

The native token INJ is used to secure the network through staking, pay for gas fees, participate in protocol governance, and incentivize developers building on Injective.

Injective (INJ) Explained 

The mission of the Injective team is to provide developers with the infrastructure and tools to build the next generation of decentralized financial products: 

• CosmWasm and EVM interoperability;

• Automatic smart contract execution;

• High throughput of up to 10,000 TPS with a block creation time of ~1 sec. Injective is one of the fastest blockchains on Cosmos in terms of block times;

• Payment of gas fees for users to simplify onboarding with optional transaction relaying that requires zero gas fees;

• Inter-Blockchain Communication with Ethereum and Moonbeam directly, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, and others via Wormhole.

• MEV resistance.

Injective provides a set of open-source modules for building exchange, DeFi, derivatives, and Web3 applications.

A fully on-chain order book. The Injective team has developed an efficient on-chain order book that makes trading transparent, secure, and protected from problems with centralized services, unlocking the full potential of decentralized finance. It allows one to create DeFi products without compromises, having all aspects of the exchange infrastructure fully decentralized.

Exchange dApps built on Injective (such as Helix, Wavely, Dexterium and more) is the front-end user interface, a decentralized exchange implementation enabling users to interact with the protocol.

Injective API Provider. According to the project’s documentation, Injective API nodes have two purposes: to serve as a data layer for the protocol and to provide fee delegation service. 

Transaction Relay Service. API nodes can additionally provide a transaction relay service that allows applications to give users the option to send transactions with zero-gas fees through Injective’s fee delegation mechanism.

Native Ethereum Bridge. In addition to the Wormhole integration, Injective also has a custom Peggy bridge that allows for Ethereum interoperability.

The Team Behind Injective Labs

Eric Chen is the CEO and co-founder. He is also a Venture Partner at Innovating Capital, one of Injective’s early investors.

Albert Chon is the CTO and co-founder. He previously worked as a Software Development Engineer at Amazon and has his BA in Computer Science from Stanford University

The team also has specialists in developing web applications, smart contracts in Rust and Golang, and experts in financial products and various markets.

In six funding rounds, Injective has raised over $56M from Pantera Capital, Binance, Block Tower, Mark Cuban, Jump Crypto, and other investors. The final round took place in August 2022.

In January 2023, investors like Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto, Delphi Labs, and Kraken Ventures joined a $150M Injective Ecosystem Initiative to accelerate developer adoption and support projects building on Injective.

Why Is INJ Worth Attention?

Injective offers the web3 world an innovative, highly interoperable blockchain model with native DEX functionality. Any financial product, from cryptocurrency spot trading to gold options, can be recreated on it. Injective features such as the decentralized order book infrastructure, interoperability, CosmWasm smart contract environment, instant transaction finality, fast speed, MEV resistance, cross-chain capability, zero gas fee, and EVM interoperability provide a robust framework for building a wide variety of dApps on top of Injective and attracting new users.  

60% of all fees collected from dApps on Injective are burned through an auction process, making Injective’s token burning ratio one of the highest in the industry. The burning mechanism creates a deflationary effect and helps accumulate value for the entire ecosystem.

Since Injective leverages a Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol, you can stake INJ to earn staking rewards while contributing to the network’s security.

Operating in more than 70 blockchains, Everstake dedicates teams of community, DevOps, and R&D specialists to each of them to ensure maximum effectiveness and stay in the loop of the ecosystem updates. Join us on Discord to chat about all things staking and Web3. In case of any queries, you can always reach out to our Injective Blockchain Manager on X.

Find out more about How to Stake Injective using the Keplr Wallet.