Injective Launches $150 Million Ecosystem Fund, INJ Price Rises 26%

Blockchain protocol Injective has announced the launch of a $150 million ecosystem development fund, sparking a 26% surge in the INJ token price.

Injective Launches $150 Million Ecosystem Fund, INJ Price Rises 26%

On the evening of January 25, Injective (INJ) revealed its plan to allocate $150 million towards developing projects within its ecosystem.

The fund has backing from major crypto investment firms, including Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto, Kraken Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, Delphi Labs, Flow Traders, Gate Labs, and IDG Capital. The $150 million development fund will be distributed over several years.

Injective is a blockchain built on the Cosmos platform, established in 2018, and was incubated by Binance Labs, with its INJ token initially offered through Binance Launchpad. In August 2022, the project successfully raised $40 million from Jump Crypto.

Injective’s CEO, Eric Chen, stated:

“We’ve seen many ecosystem funds doing great things, but none specifically dedicated to Injective or Cosmos as a whole. We refer to this as an investment alliance because projects can receive funding from either the development fund or the organizations within the alliance.”

Initially, the $150 million fund will focus on projects developing on Injective or Cosmos in areas such as connectivity, DeFi, scalability, Proof-of-Stake, and trading.

Following the announcement, INJ's price surged by 26% to $2.45, marking its highest level since November 8, 2022, when the crypto market was heavily impacted by the FTX collapse. However, INJ is still far from its all-time high (ATH) of $25.30, achieved in May 2021.

1-Hour Chart of INJ/USDT on Binance as of 09:25 PM on January 25, 2023

Ecosystem development funds became a trend among prominent layer-1 blockchains in the latter half of 2021 and early 2022. However, following last year’s market downturn, the number and scale of these funds have significantly decreased.