The Injective Protocol blockchain operates on a Tendermint-based proof-of-stake ([PoS](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-stake-pos)) consensus mechanism. Prominent validators help to secure the network while making it more decentralized as well. Injective’s consensus mechanism achieves instant transaction finality while leading to a 99% lower carbon footprint.

The [tokenomics](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-tokenomics) of INJ is as follows: maximum supply of INJ tokens is 100,000,000 and circulating supply is currently 80,005,555 INJ as of April 2023. 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.

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. 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.

Injectvie Labs is the research and development company that first began contributing to Injective Protocol. Eric Chen is the co-founder of Injective Labs. Prior to founding Injective, he worked as a cryptographic researcher and trader at a major crypto fund where he led innovative market neutral trading efforts in the blockchain space as well as investments into prominent companies such as 0x, ChainLink, and Cosmos. Chen has extensive knowledge about blockchain protocols and traditional finance along with a native understanding of both eastern and western blockchain-based protocols and communities. Albert Chon is the CTO of Injective Labs. He graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University and was a software development engineer at Amazon. He is well known for pioneering a new Ethereum standard that is used by a number of major projects today and co-founded Injective Labs with Eric Chen.

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. 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 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. 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.