The crypto market in 2025 feels strangely quiet on the surface, yet underneath, a handful of layer-1 projects are quietly building infrastructure that could redefine how we think about decentralized finance. Injective Protocol sits squarely in that small club, but for some reason it still flies under most people’s radar. Let’s change that.
Injective is not just another Cosmos-based chain chasing TVL glory. It is the first sector-specific layer-1 designed from the ground up for derivatives trading, spot markets, and on-chain order books that actually rival centralized exchanges in speed and cost. While most DeFi protocols are still stuck bridging assets and praying for liquidity, Injective went ahead and built its own fully decentralized front-end interface (Injective Pro), zero-gas prediction markets, and a cross-chain derivatives layer that already supports perpetuals on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and even equities-like synthetic assets.
The numbers in December 2025 speak for themselves: daily derivatives volume on Injective has consistently stayed above $300 million for the past 90 days (source: DefiLlama), with open interest north of $150 million. That puts it in the same league as dYdX v3 and Gains Network, except Injective is 100% on-chain, censorship-resistant, and governed by INJ token holders who burn a sizable chunk of fees every single week. Yes real fee burning, not marketing gimmicks. Over 60% of the total supply is already staked, and weekly burns have removed more than 2 million tokens from circulation since summer.
