Interview exclusif avec Justin Wu, responsable de la croissance en Asie chez Injective : Un souverain parmi les L1 DeFi, reliant l'écosystème Ethereum et Solana
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Interview exclusif avec Justin Wu, responsable de la croissance en Asie chez Injective : Un souverain parmi les L1 DeFi, reliant l'écosystème Ethereum et Solana
Justin Wu, responsable de la croissance pour la région Asie chez Injective, a examiné en profondeur les points forts du projet et les récents plans de développement.
Dédié à des analyses Web3 approfondiesInterview : Giovanni Chen, Meta Era
As Bitcoin dramatically surged past the historic milestone of 40,000 USD, this landmark event has once again ignited the entire Web3 community. Looking back at Bitcoin's breakthrough above 40,000 in January 2021, its powerful momentum drove the bull market throughout the entire year.
Two years later, the fervor within the Web3 community is resurfacing. Many people are now wondering: Is a new crypto bull run beginning?
Meanwhile, even before Bitcoin’s price recovery, one project has quietly returned to its previous cycle's all-time high, reaching a record market capitalization of 2 billion USD. With next year’s Bitcoin halving on the horizon, how high could this project climb?
This certainly sparks boundless imagination. Ranked 36th on CoinMarketCap (screenshots and rankings taken on December 12, 2023), firmly seated among the top 50 standout projects — it's Injective.
In 2018, Injective Labs was founded by Eric Chen, then studying at New York University, and Albert Chon from Stanford University. Injective Labs serves as the primary contributor to the Injective project. As early as late 2018, Injective became part of the first cohort incubated and funded by Binance Labs. Its mainnet launched in November 2021. Built as a Layer 1 blockchain dedicated to finance, Injective powers the next generation of DeFi applications. Backed by marquee investors such as Binance, Pantera, Jump Crypto, Hashed, and Mark Cuban, Injective quickly gained widespread recognition.
Amidst a cozy atmosphere perfect for deep conversation, Meta Era had the pleasure of hosting Justin Wu, Growth Manager for Asia at Injective, currently based in Taipei, to explore Injective’s highlights and recent development plans.
Meta Era: Could you briefly introduce the background, mission, and vision of the Injective project?
Justin: It's a pleasure to be interviewed by Meta Era, a leading Hong Kong-based Web3 media outlet. This month is particularly special as it marks the second anniversary of Injective’s mainnet launch. From day one, Injective has been a Layer 1 blockchain built specifically for finance. Our vision is to build the best infrastructure to help Web3 developers collectively shape the future of finance. Injective is an open, highly interoperable Layer 1 blockchain whose primary goal is to power the next generation of decentralized finance. Over the past two years, we’ve seen successful DeFi applications emerge on Injective, including decentralized spot and derivatives exchanges, prediction markets, lending protocols, and asset management platforms.
Meta Era: Why has Injective grown so rapidly?
Justin: Injective provides modular financial infrastructure that enables any developer to build fully decentralized on-chain applications from scratch—such as MEV-resistant DEXs with on-chain order books and near-zero gas fees, one of Injective’s flagship offerings.
Compared to traditional DeFi AMMs, where trade execution often suffers from slippage between quoted and actual prices, on-chain order books offer transparent, queryable pricing that aligns with traditional traders’ habits. On Injective, third-party platforms can be built independently while sharing a common order book and liquidity pool across all exchanges—significantly improving capital efficiency and attracting more traders.
From a developer perspective, Injective recently launched two sidechains: inEVM and inSVM. This means Injective not only connects with the Cosmos ecosystem but also supports Ethereum and Solana developers who can join the Injective ecosystem via a simple RPC configuration using their existing wallets. Mature projects built on other ecosystems can seamlessly migrate to Injective, making it ideal for derivatives, exchanges, and various other types of applications to bridge and deploy here.
Meta Era: Technically speaking, what innovations does Injective employ to deliver such advanced L1 DeFi infrastructure?
Justin: At the foundational level, Injective uses the Cosmos SDK framework to build an interoperable layer for decentralized financial infrastructure. This architecture ensures security and fast block times, enabling high-volume transaction processing.
Technically:
First, as I mentioned earlier, CLOB—the Central Limit Order Book—is already mature for both spot and perpetual futures, as well as options markets.
Second, Injective employs Frequent Batch Auctions, where all pending orders in the mempool are executed simultaneously at the end of each block (~1 second). Orders remain unprocessed until the auction completes, effectively preventing front-running and MEV. Gas fees required from users are nearly zero.
Third, Injective interconnects with other Layer 1 blockchains like Polygon and Solana through cross-chain bridges such as Wormhole, greatly enhancing liquidity on Injective.
Fourth, Injective uses a decentralized ERC-20 bridge to enable asset transfers between Ethereum and Injective, allowing users to leverage Ethereum-based assets when interacting with Injective.
Meta Era: That’s fascinating—can we actually use MetaMask on Injective?
Justin: Absolutely! When the team initially chose the Cosmos SDK framework, they made a forward-looking decision to ensure compatibility with Ethereum bridges and popular wallets. Even today in 2023, many users still rely heavily on MetaMask, and our compatibility makes adoption seamless.
Meta Era: So Injective’s technical advantages include being finance-optimized, fast, low-cost, and bridged with major ecosystems and assets. What unique strategies does Injective have for user acquisition?
Justin: You're absolutely right. Once technological advantages are established, product strategy must align closely with market demand.
On the product side, take Helix—the flagship DEX on Injective—as an example. Helix introduced innovative products like Pre-Launch Futures for Celestia (TIA) in November, allowing users to trade futures contracts before the token launch. Since there's already significant speculation around hot upcoming assets, this naturally attracts massive new user interest and trading volume—an excellent example of market-driven product design.
Helix’s performance over the past few months has been remarkable. Cumulative trading volume across all DEXs on Injective has surpassed $15 billion, with Helix alone achieving $1 billion in volume last month.
Last month, Helix also launched Trading Bots—advanced features typically found only on centralized exchanges like Binance. These tools are now being integrated into Helix, and soon, Helix may surpass current decentralized exchanges and rival even centralized ones in functionality.
Another key highlight is Injective’s partnership with over twenty market makers through its Open Liquidity Program. Each month, market makers receive INJ rewards based on their contribution and ranking. Strong liquidity ensures smooth trading experiences, which combined with intuitive, market-aligned products, drives sustainable user growth.
Meta Era: Very interesting indeed. I've noticed Injective has recently intensified ecosystem integrations with several high-profile projects. What kind of ecosystem is Injective aiming to build? Any upcoming partnerships in the next six months?
Justin: This year marks a period of explosive growth for the Injective ecosystem, with applications spanning NFTs, DeFi, AI, and more deploying on-chain, significantly expanding our user base. For instance, integration with Binance Web3 Wallet helps onboard users from the world’s largest exchange. Collaborations with public chains like Klaytn and Kava further enhance cross-chain environments and asset interoperability.
Looking ahead six months, we’re focusing on RWA (Real World Assets), having already partnered with Ondo Finance and Maple Finance. This will broaden Injective’s DeFi ecosystem with richer and more diverse protocols.
Additionally, inEVM, Injective’s EVM-compatible network, will officially launch in January, paving the way for more Ethereum-native projects to deploy on Injective.
It's also worth noting that Injective’s CosmWasm smart contract platform is Rust-based, closely aligned with Move and Solana’s use of Rust. We anticipate future collaborations with ecosystems using Move, such as Aptos and Sui.
Meta Era: Let’s now talk about some standout projects within the Injective ecosystem. Could you introduce a few notable ones?
Justin: We’ve already discussed Helix, the decentralized exchange known for its speed and low fees. Helix continues to add new trading pairs and offers long-term incentives for active traders.
Mito consists of multiple strategy pools and a launchpad supporting asset issuance. Over the past few months, 50,000 users participated in its testnet phase, and it is now advancing toward mainnet deployment.
Talis Protocol is the first NFT marketplace built on Injective, listing numerous NFT projects. The NFT space within Injective’s ecosystem is definitely one to watch.
Black Panther is an on-chain asset management platform incubated during an Injective hackathon and officially launched on mainnet a few months ago—users are encouraged to try it out!
Meta Era: Another topic we’re keen to discuss is Injective’s token auction and burn mechanism. Could you explain the INJ token model starting from this aspect?
Justin: Of course. INJ is Injective’s native token, used for value capture in dApps, proof-of-stake security, developer incentives, staking, and protocol governance. INJ plays a role in every component of Injective—from upgrades and voting to proposals and PoS staking.
Regarding the auction and burn mechanism: 60% of all transaction fees generated weekly are burned. Users must bid using INJ in these auctions, creating recurring utility for the token. With the INJ 2.0 upgrade introduced this year, individual on-chain protocols can now choose to allocate up to 100% of their fee revenue toward auction and burn events, contributing directly to the ecosystem.
Meta Era: Now let’s address challenges. Despite Bitcoin’s recent rise to 40,000 USD and improved market sentiment, Injective’s TVL dropped from $19M to $12M. Can you explain the reasons behind this? Do you have plans to boost TVL?
Justin: TVL depends on many factors. Certain protocols, such as liquid staking or lending platforms, naturally accumulate TVL faster. Currently, several such applications are in testing on Injective—Hydro Protocol and the recently launched Gryphon for liquid staking, and Neptune in the lending space. Once four or five of these projects go live on mainnet, I believe Injective’s ecosystem TVL will reach a new level.
Meta Era: Let’s shift to something lighter! The founders of Injective Labs come from NYU and have strong technical backgrounds. You yourself are also an NYU alumnus. What’s the team culture like? Are you all tech geeks?
Justin: The Injective Labs team has a very harmonious atmosphere. Most members have solid technical expertise, with over thirty engineers forming a highly capable core. Being a relatively small team allows for fast, agile communication—information flows instantly rather than waiting days. Internal collaboration is smooth and efficient. Since joining, I’ve found the team deeply committed—not just excelling in their own roles, but actively discussing ways to support ecosystem growth.
Meta Era: Regarding community and ecosystem, Injective has established a $150 million ecosystem fund to support developers. For regular users beyond simply interacting with ecosystem projects, I understand there’s also the Ninja Ambassador Program. Could you tell us more about it?
Justin: Starting with the ecosystem fund: building projects requires significant time and cost. As teams grow, funding needs increase accordingly. Hence, Injective launched a $150 million fund to provide grants. Disbursements are milestone-based, awarded in stages as projects achieve goals.
Moreover, if project teams or developers wish to connect with VCs or investors, Injective facilitates introductions. In return, projects are expected to demonstrate tangible progress—such as maintaining a certain trading volume for six months post-mainnet launch—to qualify for greater opportunities.
On the community side, the Ninja Ambassador Program encourages active participation and deeper engagement. Ambassadors are ranked in five tiers—the more contributions, the higher the rank. Every month, Injective distributes INJ tokens to ambassadors as incentives, fostering interaction between ambassadors, ecosystem projects, and broader user education about Injective.
Meta Era: Today we learned many detailed insights about the project. Finally, do you have any special message for our Chinese-speaking audience in Greater China?
Justin: Definitely! While growing our English-speaking community, Injective has invested considerable effort into engaging Chinese speakers in recent years. We maintain official Chinese Twitter and Telegram channels, along with a dedicated Chinese-language Discord server to broadcast all ecosystem updates. Essentially, every announcement and article is promptly translated and organized by our Chinese team. Users from Hong Kong or Greater China can access real-time information easily. For developers, questions posted in the Injective Discord or official Telegram group are typically answered by team members immediately.
Lastly, I’d like to mention that Injective will send multiple team members to attend Taipei Blockchain Week mid-December, including hosting local meetups nearby. Interested friends are warmly welcome to register and meet us in person!
Meta Era: Thank you so much for your time today! We sincerely wish continued success and growth for the Injective ecosystem.
Summary
Behind Injective stands a technically elite and highly efficient global team building Injective, a public blockchain infrastructure tailored for the future of decentralized finance. Leveraging cutting-edge technology and innovation, they've developed novel financial modules providing developers with versatile toolkits for building upper-layer applications. Through integration with multiple cross-chain bridges, Injective achieves seamless connectivity with various public chains. Its robust liquidity aggregation capabilities foster a thriving ecosystem, offering users a wide array of DeFi application choices.
On the tokenomics front, $INJ is multi-functional, serving purposes including protocol governance, dApp value capture, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security, and developer incentives. Weekly INJ token auctions and burns create recurring utility cycles for the token.
Beyond its exceptional development and operations team, Injective enjoys backing from prominent investors including Pantera, Jump Crypto, and Mark Cuban. To further empower ecosystem projects and development teams, Injective has partnered with renowned industry players such as Kraken Ventures and Jump Crypto to establish a $150 million ecosystem fund dedicated to supporting the overall growth of the Injective ecosystem.
We look forward to Injective delivering groundbreaking advancements in RWA, bridging blockchain with real-world assets and offering crypto users comprehensive and rich DeFi solutions.
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