Crypto for Advisors: The blockchain built to run financial markets
Happy Thursday, advisors!
In today’s newsletter, Josh Olszewicz from Canary Capital breaks down Injective, from the trading infrastructure in its base layer to its push into tokenized assets and the token burns behind INJ.
Then, in “Ask an Expert,” Kieran Mitha explains why advisors should watch the infrastructure taking shape, whatever they think of the token.
Happy reading.
Injective builds financial markets into its blockchain
Most layer-1 blockchains are neutral platforms that leave developers to build market infrastructure themselves. Injective takes the opposite approach, building core financial plumbing directly into the base layer. As traditional assets move onchain, that choice makes it a useful case study in whether specialized infrastructure can compete with general-purpose networks.
Founded in 2018 by Eric Chen and Albert Chon, Injective began as a decentralized derivatives venue and has grown into a financial layer-1 supporting spot and derivatives markets, lending, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.
A blockchain built around markets
On networks such as Ethereum and Solana, exchanges typically deploy their own contracts for order handling and settlement, splitting liquidity across applications. Injective provides these functions at the protocol level, including a native onchain order book, the market structure used by traditional exchanges, plus shared modules for derivatives, oracles and token issuance. Its proof-of-stake consensus, built on CometBFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant), delivers near-instant finality, block times of roughly 620 milliseconds and average fees around 0.17 cents.
Its Multi-Virtual-Machine (MultiVM) architecture lets native modules, WebAssembly contracts and, since November 2025, a native Ethereum Virtual Machine run over shared state, so Ethereum developers can bring existing code without rebuilding. Connections to Cosmos chains via Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), to Ethereum and to Solana aim to make Injective connective tissue for liquidity scattered across networks.
Real-world assets and institutional adoption
Tokenization is where that infrastructure meets a larger market. In August 2026, Injective Institutional Services became an SEC-registered transfer agent, giving it a recognized role in maintaining official securities ownership records. Injective Mint, launched in July 2026, lets issuers enforce holder restrictions, jurisdictional controls and redemption permissions.
Early use cases span several corners of finance. Pineapple Financial has moved more than $1 billion in mortgage records onchain; POSCO International and LG CNS are piloting tokenized trade receivables; and through Libre, Injective offers access to tokenized funds associated with BlackRock, Hamilton Lane and Nomura’s Laser Digital, including private credit. Tokenized assets that trade and settle on Injective generate fees, linking this activity to INJ.
INJ and the buyback-and-burn
INJ pays fees, secures the network through staking and carries governance votes. Like most proof-of-stake tokens, new INJ is issued as staking rewards; Injective offsets this by burning tokens funded by ecosystem revenue. Under the Community BuyBack introduced in 2025, participants commit INJ each month in exchange for a pro-rata share of the revenue pool, and the committed INJ is permanently burned. A 2026 upgrade narrowed annual issuance to between 2.20% and 4.40%.
Precision matters. More than 7 million INJ had been burned by October 2026, yet total supply remained near 122.9 million, approximately 22.9% above the 100 million tokens issued at launch. In other words, cumulative issuance has outpaced burns. Whether supply ultimately contracts depends on net issuance, which is influenced by revenue growth and the pace of token burns. Importantly, even a sustained decline in supply does not, by itself, guarantee price appreciation.
Risks and investment thesis
Adoption remains early. Decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked was about $18 million in October 2026, according to DefiLlama, though order-book markets rely less on deposited capital. Larger networks are pursuing the same tokenization opportunity, many institutional initiatives are still pilots, regulation could add compliance burdens, and INJ remains volatile.
Injective offers a differentiated approach to blockchain-based finance, combining purpose-built infrastructure, growing institutional interest in tokenization and a buyback-and-burn mechanism designed to connect ecosystem activity with token supply. As institutional pilots mature and onchain financial activity expands, Injective has an opportunity to translate adoption into sustained protocol revenue and stronger token economics.
— Josh Olszewicz, market analyst, Canary Capital
Ask an Expert
Q: What exactly is Injective, and how is it different from other blockchains?
Injective is a layer-1 blockchain built with financial applications in mind. Unlike Ethereum or Solana, which support everything from gaming to digital collectibles, Injective has focused much of its development on trading, lending and other financial services. Rather than trying to accommodate every possible use case, it’s designed to give developers the tools they need to build financial products.
Think of it as infrastructure built specifically for financial markets. The idea is to make it easier for developers to create applications without having to build every component from scratch. For advisors, the interesting part isn’t necessarily the technology itself but what it could eventually mean for how financial products are created, traded and managed.
Q: Why should financial advisors care about a blockchain like Injective?
Most advisors probably aren’t going to recommend Injective to their clients tomorrow, and that’s not really the point. What’s worth paying attention to is the type of financial infrastructure being developed. Traditional markets rely on exchanges, clearinghouses, custodians and other intermediaries to keep things running. Blockchains like Injective are experimenting with ways to handle some of these functions through a shared network.
Think about tokenization, for example. We’re already seeing financial institutions explore how bonds, investment funds and other assets can be issued and managed on blockchain networks. For clients, this could eventually mean access to new types of investment products or improvements in how existing ones are managed and settled. That doesn’t mean traditional financial systems are going away, but it does suggest that some of the technology behind them could change.
For advisors, it’s less about learning the technical details of every new blockchain and more about recognizing where the financial industry might be heading.
Q: What are the risks, and what should advisors keep in mind?
There’s still a big difference between building interesting technology and getting people to actually use it. Injective is competing with much larger blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum and Solana, both of which have established developer communities and financial applications. Whether Injective can attract enough users, developers and liquidity over the long term remains an open question.
There are also the usual risks that come with decentralized finance, including smart contract vulnerabilities, regulatory uncertainty and liquidity challenges. One thing I’d emphasize to advisors is that a promising blockchain doesn’t automatically make its cryptocurrency a good investment. The technology might have practical applications, but that doesn’t guarantee demand for the token or long-term price appreciation.
Injective is a useful example of how blockchain technology is becoming more specialized, particularly around financial services. Advisors don’t need to become experts in every network, but understanding what these projects are trying to solve is a good starting point for more informed conversations with clients.
— Kieran Mitha, marketing coordinator
Keep Reading
- The New York Stock Exchange announces it will use the Avalanche blockchain network exclusively to settle tokenized stocks on its upcoming 24/7 trading platform, targeting a fourth quarter launch pending regulatory approval.
- Goldman Sachs, Citi among banks said to commit $270 million to stablecoin venture.
- Coinbase receives full Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) trust bank approval, converting its provisional charter to a full national trust bank charter, allowing it to offer federally regulated custody and payment services in the U.S.
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