What is Injective (INJ) crypto?

Injective is a blockchain built specifically for financial applications such as exchanges, derivatives and tokenized assets. Its coin, INJ, pays for transactions, is staked to secure the network and is used to vote on changes. The project was founded in 2018 by Eric Chen and Albert Chon through their company, Injective Labs.

How does the Injective blockchain work?

Injective is a layer 1 blockchain built with the Cosmos SDK, the same toolkit described in what is Cosmos. It uses a version of Tendermint proof of stake, in which validators produce blocks and holders can delegate INJ to them.

Its distinctive feature is the exchange module, an order book built into the chain itself. Most decentralized exchanges on Ethereum price trades with liquidity pools. On Injective, apps can plug into a shared on-chain order book that matches buyers and sellers, closer to how a traditional exchange works.

Smart contracts arrived in stages. A CosmWasm upgrade in July 2021 added contracts written for Cosmos chains. In 2025 Injective launched a native Ethereum Virtual Machine, so apps built with Ethereum tools can run directly on the chain and share assets with CosmWasm apps. The project reports block times of about 0.64 seconds.

What is the INJ token used for?

According to Injective's token paper, INJ has three jobs:

• Paying fees for transactions and trades, and serving as collateral in some apps.
• Staking with validators, who earn rewards from newly minted INJ and fees.
• Governance, where one staked INJ equals one vote on proposals.

The genesis supply was 100 million INJ. New INJ is minted as staking rewards at a rate that moves within a band, which the paper said would tighten to between 4% and 7% a year by 2026.

How does the Injective burn work?

Injective offsets new issuance by destroying INJ, a practice explained in what is a token burn. Originally a weekly auction let users bid INJ for a basket of tokens collected from exchange fees, and the winning bid was burned. By May 2024, more than 5.9 million INJ had been burned this way.

In 2025 this was replaced by a monthly Community BuyBack. Participants commit INJ, receive a share of ecosystem revenue, and the committed INJ is burned.

Who is behind Injective Labs?

Injective Labs was the first project in Binance Labs' incubation program. Eric Chen is co-founder and chief executive. Changes to the chain itself are decided by INJ governance votes; the Meridian upgrade, adding compliance tools for tokenized assets, shipped on September 24, 2026 after one.

As of October 2026, three proposed US exchange-traded funds tied to INJ were listed on the SEC's website, and an affiliate had registered with the SEC as a transfer agent in August 2026.