Injective AMA - Key Takeaways

"Injective provides the essential infrastructure for developers to build on-chain DeFi apps with native order book/derivatives modules.”  Quoted is one of many in-depth answers Eric Chen –  Co-Founder and CEO of Injective, provided during our live Telegram AMA last week.  

Before the session, we asked Coin.fyi, community followers to pre-submit their questions via Twitter. During the one hour AMA, Eric answered 12 pre-selected questions from both the community and Coin.fyi. At the end of the session we asked live participants to submit their questions, of which Eric chose 2 to answer. 

Below are the key takeaways from the AMA and the questions that were asked. 

Coin.fyi Questions:

Q1: What is Injective and how does it work?

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 (25,000+ TPS).

Q2: How is Injective different from other layer one blockchains? What’s unique about Injective, making it the only blockchain specifically designed for DeFi applications?

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 (25,000+ TPS).

Injective natively uses IBC and is highly-interoperable with multiple layer 1s, including, but not limited to, Polygon and Solana (through recent 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.

TLDR: Injective is tailored for DeFi applications

- Built in orderbook exchange module with MEV and front running prevention

- 1.1 second block time

- Plug and play web3 module

Q3: What are the major milestones that Injective has achieved so far? What are you working on that can be disclosed to our audiences?

• Processed over ​​151  million on-chain transactions
• Leading applications deployed on injective, such as Astroport, one of the largest DeFi applications on Terra, regularly facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume shortly after its launch. Astroport has selected Injective to be its first deployment outpost, bringing one of the largest AMMs in history to the Injective ecosystem.
• Other prominent dApps launched on injective include White Whale, Kado, Frontrunner and much more. Check injective ecosystem to see the full list on injective.com.
• Recently launched $150M ecosystem venture consortium with support from Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto, Kucoin Ventures and Delphi Labs. We will use this new ecosystem iniatives to expedite adoption of interoperable infrastructure and Cosmos. To kick off this new ecosystem fund, we’re also launching the first ever Injective Global Virtual Hackathon.
• 5M + INJ burned
• $7.9 billion in trading volume https://info.injective.exchange
• Recent fiat onramp integrations
• Interchain account support through IBC v3

Our top priority is working with different teams on building best-in-class financial applications. Users can expect more diverse dApps in the Injective ecosystem and better user experience.

And of course, project X is where we’re spending the most time on!

Q4: Why is Injective the go to and the best platform for developers who are aiming to build exchanges?

On top of this, developers can build applications that are completely impossible elsewhere. For example, concepts like margin accounts (https://gov.injective.network/discussion/7786-decentralized-ftx-enabling-advanced-decentralized-margining-with-isolated-credit-pools) are only possible with Injective’s custom plug-and-play modules as well as high throughput.

It’s simply the best destination for DeFi developers and general web3 developers to build truly innovative applications.

And of course, 40% of trading fees and value accural goes directly to builders on top of Injective!

Q5: What infrastructures are exclusive on Injective for developers? What are the advantages for builders?

Injective is natively interoperable with Cosmos and Ethereum, has a CosmWasm smart contracts layer, and provides the essential infrastructure for developers to build on-chain DeFi apps with native orderbook/derivatives modules.

• Auto executing smart contracts: Utilize the next-generation CosmWasm smart contract layer capable of autonomous logic execution to ship truly decentralized applications with a flexible development suite powered by Rust.
• Novel Web3 Modules: Access the premier plug-and-play Web3 modules to rapidly iterate a diverse array of groundbreaking dApps on the first sector-specific chain specialized for financial applications such as trading, lending, savings, and more.
• Robust Liquidity: Onboard users into your applications with broad liquidity support from day one to maximize capital efficiency. Injective offers a shared liquidity environment that is supported by a thriving community and integrated with the most prominent financial institutions.
• Tailored For DeFi: Leverage the only layer one protocol optimized for building DeFi apps that can reach the next billion users in Web3. Injective is the first MEV resistant L1 with blazing fast transaction speeds, instant transaction finality and near zero fees.
• Highly Secure: Deploy on a Tendermint-based PoS network secured by a globally distributed group of renowned validators and trusted by leading institutions worldwide.
• Zero gas fee user experience!
• Lightning transaction speed!

Just to name a few

Q6: INJ is the native token of Injective. What are the use-cases for $INJ?

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 on https://hub.injective.network/governance

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 https://hub.injective.network/auction

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.

Q7: Injective is governed by the community. What are the requirements for someone to submit a proposal?

You can submit a proposal at the Governance section on Injective Hub: https://hub.injective.network/governance/

Types of proposal include text proposal, spot market launch, instant spot market launch, perpetual market launch, the change on any parameter of Injective, or a community-led initiative such as grants programs.

For every proposal you create it requires you to deposit at least 1 INJ. This is to ensure that you are an active participant of the Injective community and you are eligible to make proposals and govern the protocol moving forward. For the proposal to pass to the voting stage, it must have 500 INJ deposited. You can deposit the 500 INJ yourself or collaborate with the community to deposit them collectively.

Q8: Injective has multiple products including injective hub, injective bridge, injective explorer etc. Can you provide more information on each of them?

• Helix: A fully decentralized and open-source orderbook relayer built on top of the protocol. One of the fastest-growing DeFi exchanges in history, with five community members hosting an instance of the relayer. https://helixapp.com
• Injective Bridge: The only fully trustless cross-chain bridge with native support for Ethereum, Cosmos, and Terra. Over $150 Million in assets have been processed through the bridge since mainnet launch. A number of new integrations with layer ones such as Solana are on the horizon this year. https://hub.injective.network/bridge
• Injective Hub: A suite of tools for Injective such as a staking dashboard, INJ burn auctions, wallets, insurance funds and a comprehensive governance portal. https://hub.injective.network/
• Injective Explorer: A block explorer and analytics platform for the Injective blockchain. https://explorer.injective.network/

Q9: Largest AMM on Terra, Astroport has chosen Injective as their new home and launched its Beta on Injective last week. Can you share more about this exciting news?

For context, Astroport is a sophisticated AMM protocol that allows any user to swap crypto assets using multiple pool types, including Curve-style stableswap pools and Uniswap v2-style constant product pools.

Last week, Astroport has launched its Beta version on Injective. Originally released on Terra, Astroport was one of the largest DeFi applications on the protocol, regularly facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume shortly after its launch. Astroport has selected Injective to be its first deployment outpost, bringing one of the largest AMMs in history to the Injective ecosystem. Astroport contributors spent a great deal of time analyzing a number of major L1 networks before determining Injective to be the first host chain for its V2 iteration.

Injective’s pioneer on-chain orderbook module  is fully decentralized and uniquely MEV resistant, which allows Astroport AMM to leverage and create a far more capital efficient environment for traders everywhere. We are excited about this deployment and have been working with the Astroport team for a while to complete.

This new deployment is a major boon for the Injective ecosystem, bringing a new avenue for users to earn and swap tokens within the Injective ecosystem. We also hosted a Twitter Space to explain more of this deployment. If interested, you can watch the recap through: https://injective.xyz/3R67LU4

Q10: We’ve seen many applications leaving and choosing injective as the new destination. What’s your opinion on it? What does Injective have attractive to these projects?

The same reasons why Astroport picked Injective. And who doesn’t want to be a ninja!

Twitter Questions (Pre-Submitted)

Q11: How does the Injective Ecosystem Group plan to support and encourage the development of a strong and engaged community around the injective blockchain?

The venture group aims to support projects building on Injective & Cosmos blockchains in the interoperability, DeFi, trading, proof-of-stake infrastructure and scalability solutions sectors. It will start backing early-stage projects then slowly move from seed to later stages as the ecosystem grows as a whole

With the launch of this consortium, we are going to kick off this ecosystem fund with a hackathon to bring in investors and backers. This will allow the community to get to know more about the members of the consortium and encourage builders to receive support or investments from them.

Q12: Many users often care less about technology unfortunately and focus more on the value of the token. How does Injective manage to strike a balance between developing the technology and also improving the value of the token? What are the benefits for long-term token holders?

Proper token economics allow the ecosystem to focus on buiding and reaching mass adoption. For a decentralized ecosystem, this shouldn’t be a “balance" where one has to strike

Live Telegram Questions

Q13: I see many Decentralized Exchanges where Half procedure is Centralized like we need to deposit funds in their address for trading & after trade we can withdrawal our coins ! So, How about Injective Decentralized Margin Exchange platform? Is it also Half centralized Exchange or it's Fully Decentralized On-chain Exchange?

It’s the only fully decentralized and on-chain solution! you can check your orders here: https://explorer.injective.network/

You can even create markets on https://hub.injective.network/governance/

Q14: Among the benefits that its blockchain offers to developers, there is a "Native Ethereum Experience", but is this really not a limitation in Dex, since this network is not very scalable? or really what would that native experience be?

Try Helixapp.com and you’ll see what Ethereum experience means :). It means that you can use your Ethereum wallets to enjoy lightening fast trading experience without needing to pay for gas or even switch networks!

Thank you Eric, the Injective Team, and all community members who joined!

Hosting our first live AMA with Eric from Injective was a pleasure. Also, a big thank you to the 289 community members who participated and pre-submitted questions. During the live session we also received 250 questions within 30 seconds, which shows great enthusiasm and engagement. We are looking forward to our next AMA session, watch out for the announcement soon.