Injective is an open, interoperable layer-one blockchain for building powerful DeFi applications. Injective uniquely provides plug-and-play financial infrastructure primitives, such as a high performance on-chain decentralized exchange infrastructure, decentralized bridges, oracles, and a composable smart contract layer with CosmWasm.
Injective’s core exchange module provides state-of-the-art capabilities including an advanced on-chain order book and matching engine for spot, perpetual, futures and options markets, resistance to Miner-Extractable Value (MEV) through frequent batch auction order matching, and zero gas fees for users.
Injective is built with the Cosmos SDK and leverages a Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, which allows it to achieve instant transaction finality while sustaining lightning-fast speeds (10,000+ TPS).
Injective natively uses IBC and is highly-interoperable with multiple layer 1s, including, but not limited to, Polygon and Solana (through an upcoming Wormhole integration). It is also uniquely built to be interoperable with Ethereum, through its own decentralized ERC-20 token bridge, making Injective the first network within the Cosmos ecosystem to natively support Ethereum assets.
Smart contracts are implemented on Injective through CosmWasm, allowing for multi-chain smart contract transactions to occur seamlessly. Injective, however, is the only blockchain that enables automatic smart contract execution. This capability serves as a powerful building block for developers to create novel use cases that would not be possible on any other chain.
INJ is the native utility token that powers Injective and its rapidly growing ecosystem.
The INJ token is used across a diverse range of functions such as:
Protocol governance
dApp value capture
Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security
Developer Incentives
Staking
The INJ token is highly deflationary. 60% of all fees from dApps built on Injective are auctioned off every week via a buy back and burn mechanism, allowing the supply of INJ to dramatically decrease over time.
The Injective network enables developers to:
Build new highly interoperable cross-chain DeFi applications with fast transaction times and instant finality.
Access deep cross-chain liquidity and novel financial instruments, including decentralized perpetual swaps, expiry futures, binary options and prediction markets.
Launch applications with an automated smart contract implementation, which is singularly unique to Injective’s layer 1.
Permissionlessly create and list new markets on exchange dApps built on Injective.
Access various dApps built on top of Injective with zero gas fees.
As at October 25th 2022, the total supply of INJ is 100,000,000 and the circulating supply is 73,005,554.33 (73% of total supply).
1. What is Injective (INJ)
Injective is a blockchain built for finance. It is an open, interoperable layer-one blockchain powering next-generation DeFi applications, including decentralized spot and derivatives exchanges, prediction markets, lending protocols, and more.
Injective uniquely provides powerful core financial infrastructure primitives that applications can leverage, including a fully decentralized MEV-resistant on-chain orderbook. In addition, all forms of financial markets such as spot, perpetual, futures and options are fully on-chain. The decentralized cross-chain bridging infrastructure is compatible with Ethereum, IBC-enabled blockchains, and non EVM chains such as Solana.
Injective also provides a next-generation, highly interoperable smart contract platform based on CosmWasm, with advanced interchain capabilities. Injective is custom built with the Cosmos SDK and utilizes Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, providing instant transaction finality with the ability to sustain lightning-fast performance (10,000+ TPS).
The Injective ecosystem includes 100+ projects and over 150,000 community members globally. Injective is backed by a group of prominent investors such as Binance, Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto and Mark Cuban.
1.1 Injective Value Proposition
Injective provides the most advanced, next-generation financial infrastructure for building DeFi applications on top of the Injective blockchain. Users can access these applications in a fully decentralized, fast, cross-chain, low-fee, and secure manner.
1.2 Key Highlights
Some of Injective's key elements include:
Layer-1 smart contract blockchain: Injective provides a start of the art interchain L1 that is able to achieve ultra fast speeds while charging zero gas fees.
Unlimited DeFi applications: Injective allows anyone to build DeFi applications with Injective’s robust infrastructure and financial primitives such as an on-chain orderbook.
Cross-chain trading and yield generation: Injective is capable of supporting a diverse array of trading and yield generation activities across distinct layer-1 blockchain networks such as Cosmos and Ethereum.
Community driven network governance: Injective is governed by its decentralized community in which all new innovations are voted on by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure.
Pioneering interoperability: Injective is the most interoperable blockchain with native connections to Etheruem, Cosmos, Solana and much more.
Fully Customizable: Ship your products with the ability to swiftly modify any parameter to fit your use case.
Intuitive developer experience: Flexible and expressive development environments powered by Rust and Golang.
Environmentally Friendly: A 99% lower carbon footprint through Injective’s Tendermint PoS consensus mechanism.
2. Recent news
August 2022
July 2022
May 2022
April 2022
February 2022
November 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
3. Product and technical infrastructure
Injective is comprised of four principal components:
Injective Chain nodes
Injective's bridge smart contracts and orchestrator
Injective API nodes
Injective dApps and tooling
Source: Injective Labs Management Team.
3.1 Injective Chain
The Injective Chain is a public blockchain network custom built to support the next generation of DeFi applications. Injective utilizes Tendermint consensus and the core protocol logic is implemented through native modules built on top of the Cosmos-SDK and through smart contracts on the CosmWasm smart contract layer.
Decentralized Exchange Primitive
The Injective blockchain powers the most powerful and advanced fully decentralized orderbook-based exchange infrastructure found on blockchains today. Developers can build DEXs on Injective with no compromises while also offering a fully decentralized on-chain exchange experience that is owned and governed by the community.
Injective supports exchanges in deploying permissionless trading environments where any type of on-chain spot, perpetual, futures and options market can be launched. All aspects of the exchange infrastructure are decentralized, including the orderbook, matching engine, liquidation engine, oracles, and insurance funds.
Injective’s orderbook primitive offers capabilities including advanced order types (stop loss, take profit, reduce-only, post-only), on-chain market maker rebates, liquidity incentives, and advanced subaccount management capabilities. Injective’s exchange infrastructure is also MEV-resistant, as Injective’s on-chain matching engine employs frequent batch auctions (FBA) with uniform-clearing prices every block to prevent any form of front-running.
The exchange infrastructure is interoperable and can utilize smart contracts on Injective. It provides composable primitives that DeFi applications can leverage for building more advanced, higher order applications. Moreover, Injective’s exchange infrastructure is uniquely interoperable with other IBC-enabled blockchains and even with smart contracts on Ethereum, allowing Injective to serve as a powerful cross-chain liquidity hub used by a diverse array of multi-chain applications.
Interchain CosmWasm Smart Contract Environment
Injective provides an interoperable smart contract platform based on CosmWasm, with advanced cross-chain capabilities.
Applications built on Injective’s smart contract layer can access a wide array of powerful exchange and DeFi primitives, including on-chain liquidity, oracle price feeds, cross-chain bridging and execution abilities. Additionally, Injective uniquely supports the ability for automated smart contract execution with self-executing smart contracts - a new primitive that unlocks a novel design space for applications.
3.2 Injective Bridge
The Injective provides a decentralized cross-chain bridging infrastructure with Ethereum as well as with any IBC-enabled blockchain.
Injective’s Ethereum bridge is decentralized and secured by the validators of the Injective chain, and is powered by Injective’s custom peggy bridge system. Notably, beyond just supporting standard ERC-20 transfers, Injective also supports the transmission of arbitrary data, enabling novel cross-chain execution and smart contract interoperability capabilities with Ethereum.
Additionally, as an IBC-enabled blockchain, Injective supports cross-chain bridging with any other IBC-enabled blockchain, allowing developers and users to access assets from hundreds of other blockchains.
3.3 Injective API nodes
Injective API nodes have two purposes: 1. Serving as a data layer for the protocol 2. Providing transaction relay services
Data Layer
Injective API nodes serve as a decentralized data layer for external clients. Each Injective API node indexes data from the Injective blockchain in real time and provides high performance, low latency APIs that are out-of-the-box compatible across various use cases, including, but not limited to:
Hosting user interfaces for applications such as exchanges
Programmatic trading and high frequency market making
Hosting various dApps, analytics interfaces, block explorers and more
Transaction Relay Service
Additionally, Injective API nodes can optionally provide a transaction relay service which allows applications to provide users the ability to send transactions with zero-gas fees paid, through Injective’s fee delegation mechanism.
3.4 Injective dApps and tooling
Injective is a decentralized protocol which allows for individuals to access both the blockchain and dApps built on-chain in a permissionless manner.
A number of dApps are currently built on Injective. Presently, the most widely used dApps built on top of Injective are decentralized exchanges (DEXs), which provide individuals with an advanced decentralized trading experience. One popular dApp built on Injective is Helix which is one of the fastest growing decentralized derivatives exchanges. Beyond DEXs, Injective also powers several other decentralized applications, including dApps for insurance, prediction markets, binary options and more.
4. Token sales and economics
4.1 Token allocation
Token Name | INJ |
|---|---|
Binance Launchpad Sale | 9.00% of the total token supply |
Seed Sale | 6.00% of the total token supply |
Private Sale | 16.67% of the total token supply |
Team | 20.00% of the total token supply |
Advisors | 2.00% of the total token supply |
Ecosystem Development | 36.33% of the total token supply |
Community Growth | 10.00% of the total token supply |
4.2 Token sales data
Token Name | INJ |
|---|---|
Seed Sale Allocation | 6,000,000 INJ |
Seed Sale Token Price | 0.0833 USD / INJ |
Seed Sale Amount Raised | 500,000 USD |
Private Sale Allocation | 16,666,667 INJ |
Private Sale Token Price | 0.1800 USD / INJ |
Private Sale Amount Raised | 3,000,000 USD |
Launchpad Sale Allocation | 9,000,000 INJ |
Launchpad Sale Token Price | 0.4000 USD / INJ |
Launchpad Sale Amount to be Raised | 3,600,000 USD |
Launchpad Sale Date | Oct 19th 2020 |
4.3 Token Allocation
INJ token supply distribution (%)
INJ token release schedule
4.4 INJ token overview and use-cases
INJ is the native utility token of Injective. INJ is a scarce asset that is used for governance, token burn auctions and staking on the PoS network.
The burn auctions on Injective are especially unique since 60% of all fees collected from dApps are auctioned off every week via a buy back and burn mechanism. This in turn allows the supply of INJ to dramatically decrease over time. The INJ burn auction is unique in that it helps accrue value for the entire Injective ecosystem. Currently, Injective has the highest token burn ratio in the industry.
The use cases intended for INJ include but are not limited to: protocol governance, dApp value capture, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security, developer incentives and staking. Further details regarding each of these use cases can be found below.
Protocol Governance: The INJ token governs every single component of Injective, including chain upgrades. Since its mainnet launch, the Injective community has actively contributed to governance, with all proposals passing through a DAO governance vote. The comprehensive governance page is available here.
Protocol Fee Value Capture: 60% of all fees generated from dApps enter an on-chain buy-back-and-burn auction to maintain the deflationary nature of INJ. The burn auction page is available here.
Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Security: INJ is used to secure the Injective blockchain using a proof-of-stake mechanism. Validators and delegators can both participate in staking.
Developer Incentives: 40% of fees generated by users on dApps built on Injective go directly towards incentivizing new developers building on Injective which brings an ever growing funnel of builders to Injective.
5. Project team
6. Roadmap, updates, and business development
6.1 Updated roadmap
2022 Q4
Injective Explorer V2
Wormhole Bridge Integration to bring EVM and Solana assets into Injective
Fiat on and off-ramp for dApps
2023 Q1
Injective Hub V2
Institutional Zone
2023 Q2
Injective Exchange Module V2
Casablanca Upgrade
2023 Q3
Injective Orbital Chains
2023 Q4
Mesh chain network
Carcosa Upgrade
2024 Q1
Multi VM Chains
Volan Upgrade
6.2 Commercial partnerships and business development progress
Jump Crypto: Jump Crypto enables the future of decentralized finance by building the infrastructure necessary for innovative protocols, dApps and platforms to operate and advance. Jump Crypto supports builders on Injective while also fostering rapid ecosystem growth.
Wormhole: Wormhole is a generic message-passing protocol that connects high-value blockchains and allows applications leveraging the messaging layer to facilitate interoperability between ecosystems. This integration will bring an additional 10 new blockchains to Injective’s interoperable network, making Injective one of the most interoperable blockchains today.
Polkadot: Polkadot facilitates cross-chain communication and interoperability by connecting multiple blockchains into one unified network. This will enable Injective to expand its dApp use cases to Polkadot and its wider assortment of parachains.
Polygon:Polygon is a platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is the Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications. Injective collaborates with Polygon to delve into technical research and expand markets for Polygon assets.
Elrond: Elrond is a highly scalable, fast and secure blockchain platform for distributed apps, enterprise use cases and the new internet economy. Injective's collaboration will open new markets for Elrond and introduce new decentralized derivatives products.
Chainlink: Chainlink is an oracle provider in the blockchain space. This integration will allow Injective dApps to access hundreds of secure price feeds via which developers can create a multitude of new innovations.
Avalanche: Avalanche is an open-source platform for launching decentralized applications and enterprise blockchain deployments. The integration will allow Injective users to utilize the Avalanche assets within the broader Cosmos ecosystem.
7. Injective's activity and community overview
Injective’s community is over 150,000 members strong and has major hubs globally. Injective has one of the fastest growing DeFi ecosystems and collaborates with some of the leading projects in the industry today.
Injective’s community is currently comprised mainly of the following groups:
Developers: Injective provides an open and interoperable blockchain for developers looking to create next-generation DeFi applications such as exchanges and prediction markets. Developers can also earn on Injective by earning a percentage of dApp fees.
Institutional and Everyday Traders: This includes day traders, institutional traders and algorithmic traders that are seeking to leverage the exchange dApps built on Injective for market creation (i.e. derivatives) and trading. Injective has built unique features to onboard institutions and provides robust access to institutions via its APIs.
Market Makers: Injective has created the leading on-chain orderbook primitive in the market today. As a result, market makers can seamlessly provide liquidity on Injective exchange dApps.
DeFi Enthusiasts: Injective provides access to some of the most innovative DeFi applications. On Injective, users will find apps for trading, yield generation, prediction markets and much more.
7.1 Social activity
Injective has been focused on community growth from day one and employs a diverse array of strategies to achieve mainstream global adoption.
Current community growth strategies of Injective:
Empowering community participants to be Injective ambassadors to grow a robust and sustainable finance focused developer ecosystem.
Creating new bridges to blockchains such as Ethereum and Cosmos to enable fast transfers and increased utility for Injective users.
New dApps built on Injective bring new products and ideas to the Injective blockchain.
Future community growth strategies of Injective:
Growing the Injective institutional and developer user base via a diverse array of incentive programs.
Introducing an on-chain referral system for network participants to capture a high percentage of the fees that they bring to the ecosystem.
Launching new products around savings, stablecoins and lending to further strengthen the Injective ecosystem.
Community and social channels (data as of February 5th 2021)
Reddit | 4.8K Members
Twitter | 140K Followers
Telegram (English) | 15.2K Members
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