Injective: April 2021 Update

Welcome to Injective’s April update!

It’s been another huge month for the Injective family.

Thanks to a funding round from Pantera, Mark Cuban, and a number of other major investors, Injective was catapulted into unicorn status. Another milestone was soon reached afterwards with $50 million staked on Equinox.

INJ was listed on Gemini, eight new collaborations were cemented, and Injective Labs hosted panels with six of them. Here is an ever-expanding list of some of the community's biggest wins yet.

April Highlights

Injective raised $10 million from Mark Cuban, Pantera, and other big-time investors. This milestone received widespread media attention from publications like TechCrunch, Cryptobriefing, and The Block
Injective reached a new milestone of over $50 million locked on Equinox Staking. Injective enthusiasts also published a major Equinox Staking update and announced surprise token drops from Ethereum, PARSIQ, and Ramp DeFi. Staked onboarded as the latest genesis validator to enable institutional access to staking
Injective collaborated and integrated with Big Data Protocol, Persistence, Litentry, Band Protocol, Harmony, API3, Klaytn, and UMA
Injective published Injective’s official governance proposal procedure and launched Injective governance for spot markets
Community Initiatives: Injective hosted live YouTube panels with Orion and 1inch Protocol, Harmony, and API3, DIA, and Band Protocol. Injective also participated in AMAs with Harmony and Alpha Finance, and the first community quiz took place on Telegram. Injective teamed up with Binance to commit $50,000 in INJ tokens as rewards for users. Alpha Finance now supports leveraged yield farming pools of BNB/INJ.

1. $1 Billion Valuation After $10 Million Growth Funding Round

Injective has experienced its biggest funding round to date, generating over $10 million dollars and catapulting to over $1 billion valuation as a network.

A group of prominent investors contributing to this round included billionaire NBA team owner and Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban, Pantera Capital, BlockTower, Hashed, Cadenza Ventures, CMS, QCP Capital, and Cumberland, the crypto arm of one of the largest trading firms DRW.

TechCrunch, one of many publications which covered the round, dubbed Injective a “Robinhood for DeFi”. Other articles appeared on Cryptobriefing and The Block.

2. Equinox Staking Updates

Thanks to sky rocketing demand within the community, over $50 million has been staked on Equinox to date. This milestone comes just weeks after the launch of Equinox Staking.

A major Equinox Staking update was published addressing new technical parameters that will bring a heightened user experience for everyone. This includes but is not limited to a new staking rewards calculator and formula, enhanced re-delegation, and other improvements across the board.

The past month has seen a number of surprise token drops from Ethereum, PARSIQ, and Ramp DeFi to help ramp up and reward the community. Injective also onboarded Staked as the latest genesis validator. Staked is one of the most prominent authorities on cryptocurrency staking with a long history of working with premier funds, exchanges, and custodians to facilitate institutional-grade staking.

The tremendous amount of progress seen in such a short amount of time on the staking rollout is thanks largely to the laser focus and efforts of the community.

3. Collaborations & Integrations

Injective locked in eight new strategic collaborations over the past month.

Injective collaborated with Klaytn to bring decentralized trading to millions of users within the Klaytn ecosystem. Now Klaytn users will have access to Injective's diverse financial markets, while users on Injective will be able to create new ones using assets built on the Klaytn blockchain.

Injective linked up with UMA to launch innovative synthetic products. By integrating with the decentralized derivatives exchange, synthetic assets on UMA can be made available to Injective users moving forward.

Injective delved deeper into existing collaboration with Band Protocol to operate validator nodes on one another’s networks. Moving forward, this dual validator arrangement will serve to align and strengthen long-term goals for both parties.

Injective joined forces with Harmony to launch a diverse array of interoperable derivatives. Looking ahead, these forms of interoperability can allow users to trade a number of new derivative products that utilize Harmony-based assets.

Injective integrated API3 into the growing oracle ecosystem. This collaboration is expected to add value by providing external, real-world data feeds from API3’s network of first-party oracles.

Injective rolled out a collaboration with Big Data Protocol to create and launch structured data token products. Injective and BDP users can soon create and trade data derivatives based on the BDP Data Market.

Injective explored new synergies with Persistence after integrating their staking arm Audit.one as a genesis validator. The next goal is to not only support Persistence-native assets on the platform for perpetual futures trading, but work together to launch liquid staked assets (facilitated by Persistence’s pStake application) as a derivative product on Injective.

Injective integrated Litentry to unlock optimized on-chain data, addressing salient on-chain governance issues in the DeFi space. The process will entail aggregating decentralized identity (DID) data sets across multiple networks.

4. Governance Updates

This month has also been a time for reinforcement of the mission, which has always been to create a new financial paradigm that is wholly owned, operated, and governed by the community.

Injective’s official governance proposal procedure was published, describing the nature of on-chain governance on the Injective Chain and providing a detailed overview of a governance proposal’s lifecycle.

Injective governance was also launched for spot markets. With this development, users who are participating in Equinox staking will be able to propose and vote on new spot market listings. The governance process is a core component of the decentralized protocol and will serve an important role in the upcoming mainnet release.

5. Community Initiatives

To further engage new collaborations, Injective Labs hosted a number of livestream YouTube panels with friends at Orion and 1inch Protocol, Harmony, and API3, DIA, and Band Protocol. These conversations help keep everyone in the loop about exciting projects under the hood.

DeFi and DEXs: Orion Protocol, 1inch Exchange, and Injective: Link

Cross-Chain Derivatives and Interoperability in DeFi: Injective Protocol and Harmony: Link

DeFi and Oracles: Injective Protocol, Band Protocol, DIA and API3: Link

Injective's public appearances have spanned numerous platforms, including a Reddit AMA hosted by Harmony and a Telegram AMA hosted by Alpha Finance. To further interact with the Telegram community, Injective hosted the first Injective quiz, titled “Know Your Protocol”, awarding top scorers with exclusive Injective gear.

Injective teamed up with Binance to commit $50,000 in INJ tokens as rewards for users.

Looking Ahead

Without the hard work of the community, none of these incredible milestones would have come to pass. With mainnet ahead, these communal efforts will be the fuel that propels Injective forward.

About Injective

Injective is a lightning fast interoperable layer one blockchain optimized for building the premier Web3 finance applications. Injective provides developers with powerful plug-and-play modules for creating unmatched dApps. INJ is the native asset that powers Injective and its rapidly growing ecosystem. Injective is incubated by Binance and is backed by prominent investors such as Jump Crypto, Pantera and Mark Cuban.