Injective CEO Eric Chen expects US INJ ETFs to launch sooner than 2027

Injective (INJ) co-founder and CEO Eric Chen said he expects U.S. exchange-traded funds tied to the Layer 1 network's native token INJ to launch before 2027.

"I can't comment on the specific time, but I think 2027 is a little bit too far," Chen said in an interview with The Block at Korea Blockchain Week 2026. "It's actually way sooner than I expected as well, so we'll see."

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission's website, there are currently two ETF applications tied to INJ — the 21Shares Injective ETF and the Canary Staked INJ ETF. Initially filed in 2025, both issuers submitted amended S-1 registration statements in September, signaling progress in the application process.

Chen made the ETF comment amid a broader licensing push. Injective Institutional Services became an SEC-registered transfer agent in August. This allowed the network-affiliated legal entity to maintain ownership records for securities. He said the registration is just the start, rather than the end.

"In terms of U.S. licensing, I think transfer agent is basically the very start. There's going to be a few more licenses that we'll be working on," Chen said. With the registration and the network's latest Meridian upgrade, he said "an Injective institution can actually be the clearinghouse for settlement."

Injective shipped Meridian on Sept. 24 after a governance vote as a "massive institutional upgrade," according to the CEO. He described the upgrade as a way for institutional clients to move from pilots to live onchain tokenization, offerings, and collateralization, with built-in transfer controls for compliance.

Eyeing Europe

In Europe, he said a Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) white paper for the INJ token has been submitted and finalized. 

Injective announced in July that it had completed the notification and publication of INJ's MiCA white paper. It is listed in the European Securities and Markets Authority's (ESMA) interim register, which was a disclosure step toward INJ's admission to trading in the EU. Chen said obtaining a license in the region is a slow process, so Injective is working with firms that already hold one.

"There's actually a very exciting upcoming collaboration exactly around that. We're working with very large financial institutions," he said. "MiCA is actually a stepping stone to that." The Injective CEO said the work covers payments and tokenization.

In terms of real-world asset tokenization, Chen said he views the private asset market as a "really important part."

"So anything that typically within TradFi requires months of bundling things together, months of pitching, tens of hundreds of layers of middlemen like selling them in tranches and then dividing up before it becomes an actual liquid investment instrument," Chen said. "Onchain that completely gets compressed within like one or two small contracts, and that's I think where it's gonna be most promising."