Injective : Built for Finance

About Injective

Injective is designed specifically for finance. It operates as a layer-1 smart contract blockchain with a suite of tailor-made robust infrastructure solutions for building fully customized Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications, including decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, prediction markets, and more, with ultra-fast speeds and low fees.

This unique focus makes Injective favorable for projects to build on, equipping it with plenty of opportunities to attract billions of users.

Who founded Injective

Eric Chen and Albert Chon co-founded Injective Labs, which is a core contributor to Injective.

Injective launched its mainnet on November 16, 2021, with a $120 million incentive program, Injective Astro, to boost liquidity and trading on the exchange dApps built on Injective.

Backed by prominent investors like Binance, Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto, and Mark Cuban, Injective now has significant credibility within the ecosystem.

How does Injective work

Injective is comprised of four principal components as a DeFi powerhouse:

• Injective Chain nodes
• Injective bridge, smart contracts, and orchestrator
• Injective API nodes
• Injective dApps and tooling

Injective Chain

Built with the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, Injective provides instant transaction finality with the ability to sustain lightning-fast performance. This makes it an extremely efficient option for financial transactions.

Injective can support various trading and yield generation activities, including spot, futures, options, and perpetuals. Its core exchange module includes an on-chain orderbook, a powerful matching engine, and Miner Extractable Value (MEV) resistance. These features make Injective an ideal choice for projects building sophisticated dApps that require advanced capabilities and high security.

Bridge & Smart Contracts

Injective's decentralized cross-chain bridging infrastructure is ideal for projects because it is compatible with Ethereum through its own token bridge, IBC-enabled blockchains, and non-EVM chains like Solana via wormhole integration.

It also provides a highly interoperable smart contract platform based on CosmWasm with advanced interchain capabilities. It’s the first to offer auto-executing smart contracts, enabling faster and more innovative applications and seamless integration with other chains in the ecosystem.

API nodes

Injective’s API nodes serve two key purposes for projects to build customized applications:

1. As a decentralized Data Layer for the protocol in indexing real-time, high-performance, and low-latency data for use cases like hosting dApps and other user application interfaces, programmatic trading, and high-frequency market making.
2. Providing Transaction Relay Services to allow applications to send transactions with zero-fas fees through Injective’s fee delegation mechanism.

dApps & Tooling

Injective’s impressive tech stack has encouraged the build of 14 decentralized applications (dApps), processing over $7.4+ billion to date.

As a fully decentralized blockchain, the most popular dApps built on Injective have been decentralized exchanges (DEXs) - with Helix being one of the fastest-growing decentralized derivatives exchanges in its ecosystem.

Beyond DEXs, Injective also powers various dApps for insurance, prediction markets, binary options, and more.

About Injective (INJ) Token

The INJ token is Injective’s native utility token with an initial genesis supply of 100M INJ and is used to help secure the chain via staking. It is used in the following ways:

• Fee Value Capture
  ‍The token features a unique burn auction where 60% of fees collected from dApps are auctioned off weekly via a buyback and burn mechanism with the highest token burn ratio in the industry. This reduces the total supply of INJ tokens over time and helps increase the value of the entire Injective ecosystem.

• Incentives
  ‍40% of fees from dApps built on Injective go directly to incentivizing developers to encourage more builds. This creates an ever-growing pool of developers for Injective.‍

• Staking & Rewards
  ‍INJ can be staked to help secure the Injective Chain and earn INJ rewards as incentives.

• Governance
  ‍The INJ token governs every component of Injective, including chain upgrades. Staked INJ grants eligibility in governance, and INJ is required to contribute when drafting and submitting proposals, and for participants to vote on proposals.‍‍‍

Staking INJ

Staking is locking up your INJ tokens to help validate blockchain transactions for network security. Those who choose to stake can delegate their tokens to validators like Stakewithus and earn rewards as an incentive.

Things to note

• Inflation
  The INJ token has an inflationary design. Inflation was 7% at genesis but will decrease to 2% over time. The total INJ supply may eventually be lower than the initial amount due to its deflationary mechanism.

• Auto-compound
  Rewards earned are not auto-compounded. To do so, stakers must manually claim, and re-stake rewards earned to do so (note that gas costs will apply for each transaction). Alternatively, tools such as ReStake, which is available on Unagii App, can be enabled to help Unagii users auto-compound rewards.‍

• Unstaking
  There is a 21-day unbonding period when unstaking INJ from the network with the validator. Stakers can unstake anytime but will not earn rewards and will be susceptible to slashing during unbonding.

• Risks
  Staking risks do apply, including slashing involved for downtime and double signing.

• Non-custodial
  Staking is non-custodial, and you always hold control over your INJ. Validators do not have access to your delegated assets.

More Info: Staking Rewards - Injective

How to stake INJ

There are several ways to stake INJ tokens, primarily with a Web3 wallet to a validator directly or on their platform.

Keplr Wallet

1. Set up Keplr wallet (if you do not have one), and connect Ledger (if you have one)
2. Click “Stake” or go to the Keplr Staking Dashboard and connect wallet
3. Select Injective chain
4. Select a validator (Stakewithus) to delegate tokens to
5. Enter the desired amount of INJ to stake
6. Confirm and approve the transaction

Unagii App

Staking on the Unagii App platform delegates tokens to our Stakewithus validator. Rewards earned are paid per-block basis, and users may manually claim their rewards and restake them to compound their returns. Enabling auto-compound via REstake by Eco Stake is also available on the platform.

1. Connect wallet (Keplr / Ledger / Keystation)
2. Go to the Injective page
3. Click “Stake”
4. Enter the desired amount of INJ to stake
5. Select gas option
6. Confirm and approve the transaction

Note: A delegation commission fee is required to be paid to Stakewithus for staking as part of the transaction.

Guide to Injective governance

INJ holders that have staked or delegated their tokens to a validator can participate in governance and vote on proposals to enhance Injective programs, upgrade technology, or make other impactful changes to the Injective ecosystem.

Proposals can be drafted, submitted, and voted on through its native Injective Hub governance portal and through platforms listed in the infographic below.

The Injective ecosystem

The Injective ecosystem includes over 100 projects and more than 150,000 community members globally, demonstrating its reliability and popularity. In January 2023, Injective launched a $150M ecosystem initiative to accelerate the adoption of DeFi with Injective.

Some of the ecosystem’s leading dApps built on Injective include:

• Helix
  The premier decentralized exchange offers zero-fee trading of derivatives and spot markets. It features best-in-class security, fast speeds, cross-chain assets, and high rebates (up to -1bps), driving over $1B in volume within a month since its launch.

• Frontrunner
  The first decentralized sports prediction market built on Injective. It’s selected for the CoinList Seed Fall 2022 Cohort and is now in Testnet.

• Astroport
  Astroport is a sophisticated automated market maker protocol allowing users to swap crypto assets, provide liquidity, and earn yield. Originally released on Terra, Astroport was one of the largest DeFi applications on the protocol and is now in testnet on Injective.