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Is Injective Protocol a Good Investment? Price Prediction 2024,2025
Investing 101
Sep 9, 2024

Is Injective Protocol a Good Investment? Price Prediction 2024,2025

Injective Protocol is a name you may have heard of if you are familiar with the world of DeFi,  and this can be attributed in great part to the project's pioneering work around smart contracts, interoperability, and novel financial applications.

Most recently, Injective Protocol appears to be gaining a significant amount of new attention due to the project's exciting involvement with Real World Assets (RWA) and the bridging of highly sought-after institutional products with the world of crypto. But as with any cryptocurrency, if you are looking to invest, then it is fundamental to look beyond any short-term hype, and carefully study multiple areas which contribute to the value of the token.

For this reason, we’ll take a deep dive into Injective Protocol, exploring its use cases, team, market performance, and upcoming plans, while also offering a price prediction for 2024 and 2025. By the end, you'll have a clearer understanding of whether Injective Protocol is a good investment, and how it fits into the real-world and cryptocurrency landscape.

Reading this article, you'll learn about: 

  • What is Injective Protocol?
  • What makes Injective Protocol a Unique Project?
  • Notable Partnerships/Announcements
  • Injective Protocol Controversies
  • Injective Protocol Price Prediction 2024, 2025
  • Is $INJ a Good Investment?
  • Where to Buy $INJ

Let’s get started!

What is Injective Protocol?

Injective Protocol is a decentralised Layer-1 blockchain that is designed to provide a fast, scalable, and interoperable environment for DeFi applications. In other words, it serves as a platform for creating decentralised applications (dApps) that can operate seamlessly across multiple blockchains, allowing users to interact with various assets and protocols in a highly efficient manner.

To expand on this, Injective Protocol is a Proof of Stake (POS) platform that is built using the Cosmos SDK, which enables cross-chain interactions through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. This architecture allows for instant transaction finality, and fast/secure transactions between different blockchains like Ethereum and Solana; positioning it as a key player in the world of interoperable DeFi.

It's important to note that Injective's main focus is on financial services, providing the infrastructure for decentralised exchanges (DEXs), and offering services for decentralised perpetual swaps, futures, and spot trading; to name a few use cases. Most recently, Injective Protocol has started to put a lot of its resources into the burgeoning RWA market and has recently released some exciting new products that allow retail to benefit from institutional products. 

Who is the team behind Injective Protocol?

Injective Protocol was co-founded by Eric Chen, who serves as the CEO of Injective Labs; the core development team behind the protocol. Chen previously worked as a cryptography researcher and trader at Innovating Capital, where he focused on market-neutral trading strategies. His deep knowledge of blockchain protocols, paired with experience in both the Eastern and Western crypto markets, has been a significant driving force behind Injective’s growth. 

Injective’s other co-founder and CTO is Albert Chon, brings a wealth of technical expertise to the team. A Stanford graduate in computer science, Chon worked as a software development engineer at Amazon before co-founding Injective. His technical leadership has been instrumental in the design and development of Injective’s scalable and interoperable architecture​.

In sum, the Injective Labs management team are leading crypto trading and tech experts, and whose visions and objectives are being brought to life by a team of skilled engineers, traders, and developers.

What is the $INJ token used for?

The $INJ token plays an important role in the Injective Protocol ecosystem by serving multiple key functions that ensure the security, governance, and functionality of the network. 

Below are some of $INJ's key utilities:

1. Security and staking: Injective uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, where validators and delegators stake $INJ to validate transactions and secure the network. In return, both get $INJ for their efforts, while penalties (slashing) are applied for malicious actions. This helps to ensure network integrity​.

2. Governance: $INJ holders can also vote on proposals that affect the network's upgrades and framework. Voting power is proportional to the amount of staked $INJ, making decision-making​ decentralised. 

3. Medium of exchange: $INJ is also used to pay transaction fees, and purchase services and goods within the Injective ecosystem. In other words, $INJ is the default currency for the platform.

4. Deflationary mechanism: Injective has a "buy back and burn system" where 60% of transaction fees are used to buy and burn $INJ. What this does is reduce supply over time to maintain deflationary pressure​.

5. Collateral for derivatives: $INJ serves as collateral in Injective’s derivatives markets, allowing users to back margin trades and participate in insurance pools​.

Total unlock progress

Below is information regarding $INJ's token unlock, burn progress and allocation according to data by TokenUnlocks:

Market cap - 1,662,340,051.83 USD

Total locked - 0,00% (although a small amount of $INJ has since been staked)

Unlocked - 100,00m $INJ (100%)

Untracked - N/A

Burn  - Injective burns 60% of all exchange fees every week through an auction process.

Allocations ($INJ) - Ecosystem development (36.3%), Team (20%), Private sale (16.7%), Community growth (10%), Binance launchpad sale (9%), Seed sale (6%), Advisors (2%). 

Injective Protocol historical price performance

The current price of $INJ (at this time of writing) - $17.01

$INJ All-time high (May 14, 2024) - $52.75

$INJ performance YTD (Year to date) - +147.49%

$INJ performance all-time - +1526.44%

What makes Injective Protocol a Unique Project?

Injective Protocol stands out from the crowd with a combination of innovative features that are designed to empower developers and traders, bring about revolutionary DeFi applications, and bridge the gap between mainstream finance and crypto.  

Here's a breakdown of the project's unique selling points:

Pioneering auto-executing smart contracts: Injective Protocol allows for the creation of auto-executing smart contracts, which enables faster, more efficiency, and has the potential to bring about groundbreaking dApps. This allows for a wealth of new possibilities within DeFi and TradFi. 

Already assembled DeFi kit: Injective Protocol provides the tools to build financial products  seamlessly. For example, developers have access to pre-built financial primitives, like a fully decentralised order book. In other words, Injective's "plug-and-play" kit empowers developers to build products like decentralised exchanges, prediction markets, and sophisticated on-chain strategies without reinventing the wheel.

Next level interoperability: Injective has something many other blockchains don't - native interoperability with many other sovereign blockchain networks. This includes Ethereum, IBC-powered chains like Cosmos Hub, Moonbeam, and Wormhole integrated chains like Avalanche and Solana. 

Developer-friendly ecosystem: Injective development stack revolves around Rust and Golang, and allows for a large developer base to get involved. The protocol is also compatible with CosmWasm, which is a powerful smart contracting platform specifically designed for the Cosmos ecosystem. This makes it easy for Cosmos projects to interact with Injective products and tooling.  

Gas compression for users: Implemented this year, Injective now offers gas compression for users, making transaction costs on Injective the lowest in the crypto space. Whether the transaction is for staking, trading on a dApp, lending, minting an NFT, or voting on a governance proposal, there will be virtually zero cost ($0.01).

Insurance funds for derivatives: In the event of sudden market crashes or liquidity failures, Injective Protocol provides insurance coverage for derivative traders, and this comes from users being able to create insurance funds for certain derivative markets; essentially becoming underwriters. 

Industry backing and expertise: Another comparative advantage Injective has over other projects is having the support of industry giants like Binance Labs, Pantera Capital and Jump Crypto; as well as investment from mainstream titans such as Mark Cuban. This means Injective Protocol has access to resources, expertise, and a network that few others have. 

Real World Asset (RWA) integration: Last but not least, Injective is positioning itself as a leader in bridging the gap between traditional finance and DeFi by offering access to institutional-grade financial products. Whilst there are others who are purporting to do this, Injective Protocol have already released products that do this, and have the connections to bring more institutional players into the mix. 

Notable Partnerships/Announcements

With regards to notable partnerships and/or announcements for 2024, Injective Protocol has achieved the following this year:

Injective launches gas compression (19/01/24): In January, Injective announced its revolutionary gas compression technology, which significantly reduces transaction fees on the network. This upgrade makes Injective one of the most cost-efficient blockchains, with transaction costs dropping to as low as $0.01. 

Collaboration with Arbitrum (08/05/24): Injective partnered with Arbitrum, one of the leading Ethereum Layer-2 solutions, to pioneer novel interoperable EVM infrastructure. This collaboration enables seamless interaction between Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks and Injective, improving cross-chain operability and further expanding Injective’s reach into the Ethereum ecosystem.

Injective integrates with The Graph: (17/06/24): To support data accessibility for developers, Injective integrated The Graph, a decentralized protocol for indexing and querying blockchain data. This partnership allows developers on Injective to access open data and build more data-driven applications, making it easier for builders to create complex DeFi solutions.

21Shares launches Injective ETP (18/07/24): In July of this year, 21Shares (a leading crypto ETP provider) announced a new Exchange Traded Product (ETP) that would revolve around staking Injective. This is now available on Euronext, and allows European investors to gain exposure to $INJ while earning staking​ rewards.

Altaris mainnet upgrade (08/08/24): Injective completed its Altaris mainnet upgrade last month, which introduced advanced features such as Real-World Asset (RWA) oracles, and improved burn auction mechanisms. This upgrade further strengthens Injective's position as a leader when it comes to the tokenisation of institutional-grade assets.

Injective released first ever tokenised index for BUIDL Fund (04/09/24): Over the past few days, Injective made history by powering the first tokenised index for BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund. Currently the largest of its kind with almost $500 million invested, this is the first time people can trade perpetual futures on BUIDL via Injective.

Injective Protocol Controversies

From analysing sources such as Crypto Twitter and Google News, it appears that Injective Protocol hasn't been in the middle of any controversies. Given how a large percentage of crypto projects have had controversies surrounding them, this is a good sign. 

However, although there have been no controversies, some commentators have been a little concerned about $INJ's very low TVL (Total Value Locked) volume; which according to DeFi Lama, is just $42.17m. This can be a little concerning, as this figure is much lower than other blockchains which have much smaller market caps, and this could prompt some to speculate that $INJ is not being used as much as the project states. Others might also be concerned about pump and dumps, especially since the majority of $INJ is concentrated in the hands of a select few.  

Injective Protocol Upcoming Plans

There doesn't appear to be a roadmap for 2025. This means that it may be hard to gauge momentum for the project, as quite often, roadmaps can provide valuable information regarding major releases and updates. Knowing this information in advance can help to time investments leading up to major releases or updates.

For this reason, if you would like to learn more about the Injective Protocol's upcoming plans, it is advisable to do one of two things (or both):

1) Sign up to Injective's notifications via Notifi

2) Join one of Injective's frequent AMA's

Injective Protocol Price Prediction 2024, 2025

Now for a $INJ price prediction. 

While other outlets and blogs are all too happy to provide wild and unfounded price predictions, it's nearly impossible to provide a 100% prediction for the price of Injective in 2024 and 2025.  What we can do, however, is provide a rough outlook on the price of $INJ based upon past and current indicators. 

Firstly, going by tech offerings and positioning, it appears that Injective Protocol is right at the forefront of providing cutting-edge crypto finance solutions — both for retail and institutional players. This can best be highlighted by Injective's recent tokenisation of BlackRock's BUIDL Fund, which essentially means investors from all walks of life can get access to the biggest RWA fund in the world. So from a value and usage standpoint, Injective Protocol has a lot going for it that many other projects don't, and it has the infrastructure, products and connections to onboard thousands of retail and institutional investors. 

In terms of how Injective's offerings and developments impact $INJ price, it does appear that there is some correlation, and this can primarily be seen with Injective's gas compression launch in January, which some could argue was the catalyst for $INJ's price skyrocketing to it's ATH of $52.75 in March. Yet it's important to note that the $INJ token has had a big drop since, and some speculators believe that this could be to do with a very small TVL amount, combined with $INJ primarily being held by a select few. The logical assumption here is that in the event of any pump, the select few may sell a portion of their holdings to realise profit. 

In terms of technical analysis, $INJ has been in a downtrend since early March. It has lost 68% of its value since then, following a series of lower highs and lower lows. The price also saw a candle wick down to test the major support at $13. Currently, the $INJ price is sitting on top of the 0.786 fibonacci, from where a bounce could occur. Failure here could see the $INJ price fall down to the main bull market support at $13.

So what do we have for an Injective price prediction?Although $INJ can potentially see an increase in price if it continues to release tech updates and products that provide value to investors and traders, the fortunes of $INJ's price appear to depend on Bitcoin ($BTC) being able to reverse its own downtrend. For this reason, the author of this article believes that there will be no "significant" moves for $INJ in 2024.

However, because the author believes that Bitcoin may experience a surge sometime in 2025, combined with the fact that the RWA market could reach $10 trillion in a "bull case" (and $3.5 trillion in the "bear case"), the author believes that $INJ could come close to it's ATH sometime next year. As to when, this remains unknown. 

Is $INJ a Good Investment?

As we always say, answering this question really depends on your motivations, risk adversity, investing timeframe, and strategy.

Going by the previous price analysis, it appears that while Injective Protocol boasts excellent technology and financial products, and has the potential to become a leader in the crypto RWA market, there are a few things which go against it; mainly its low TVL amount, and the majority of $INJ being held by a select few. What's more, there isn't a roadmap available for 2025, and this can make it hard to invest a significant amount of money without any concrete plans laid out. That being said, Injective Protocol appears to be right at the forefront of a new frontier in crypto (RWAs) that could very well explode in the future. Combined with another Bitcoin bull market, then there is no reason why $INJ can't eclipse it's ATH in the future. For this reason, it may be worth including $INJ in a diversified crypto portfolio that is structured in a way that can bring about impressive gains, but minimise the impact any market downturn for certain tokens.

But be aware, even if $INJ experiences a massive surge, the small TVL amount, combined with the majority of the token supply being owned by a select few means that any surge will likely be followed by a drop in price. So if you have a short to medium term approach to investing, then it is advisable to make certain arrangements to ensure you enjoy profits when they are available. 

Where to Buy $INJ

If you are a European crypto investor or enthusiast, and you want to invest in $INJ, then ICONOMI is ideal and is best known for its crypto strategies offering.

Buy on ICONOMI

If you want to purchase $INJ on ICONOMI, you can do so in just a few easy steps.

All you will need is to register an account with ICONOMI, and once approved, you can easily purchase $COTI by doing the following:

  • Go to Invest
  • Select the Cryptocurrencies tab
  • Select the asset you wish to buy (in this case, $INJ)
  • Click/tap Buy
  • Select euro or British pound under Fiat currencies (or the cryptocurrency you want to use)
  • Enter the amount to spend or amount to receive
  • Follow the on-screen instructions

And there you have it, you've now bought $INJ. You can then either leave it on the platform, or send it to a crypto wallet.

Include $INJ as part of a diversified portfolio

Alternatively, if you want to have a more risk-averse approach to investing in $INJ, then you can do one of two things:

1) Create your own crypto strategy, and allocate a small percentage to $INJ.

2) Find an existing crypto strategy that has $INJ as part of its basket, and simply join the fund.

The latter is perhaps the easiest way to invest in $INJ, as you will be investing in a hands-off manner, and entrusting the investment management process to the owner of the strategy. 

Conclusion

To conclude, Injective Protocol is no doubt a very impressive project due to the quality of its team, the revolutionary technology and products that it releases, and its comparative advantage when it comes to finance. What's more, unlike many other projects, there doesn't appear to be any major controversy, which is the last thing investors want when it comes to price stability. However, as already mentioned, $INJ does seem to be very concentrated in the hands of a select few, and this is something that can really deter investors long-term, as in the event of any big pump, then early investors will most likely be looking to make a profit on their investment. That being said, if Injective Protocol can become a leader in a booming RWA market, then it would somewhat negate the concentration of $INJ, as there will be less pressure to sell. Either way, the quality of Injective Protocol's overall offerings makes it a respectable investment, But to avoid any unnecessary risk, it is advisable to only invest an amount you can afford to lose, and to include $INJ as part of a well-thought-out crypto portfolio; with ICONOMI being the ideal place to do this. 

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