America's First INJ Staking ETF Debuts on Nasdaq, Trading Just 2,933 Shares on Day One
Author: Curry, TechFlow
Staking products for mid-to-small cap public blockchains have finally made it into US brokerage accounts, but initial day trading volume was nearly negligible.
On November 5, Canary Capital's Canary Staked INJ ETF (ticker INJC) officially began trading on Nasdaq. This is the first US-listed staked Injective (INJ) ETF.
Data from Yahoo Finance shows that the initial day volume was only about 2,933 shares, opening at $25.15, peaking at $26.45, and closing around $26.15. Canary's official website showed an NAV of approximately $15 million at the same time, corresponding to a seed subscription previously committed by the Injective Foundation. The fund holds about 1.91 million INJ tokens, with an NAV of roughly $25 per share, indicating a premium/discount rate close to zero.
Meanwhile, driven by positive news, INJ itself rose 9% over a four-hour period.
Placed against recent similar products, this number stands out as exceptionally thin.
Bitwise's Solana staking ETF saw initial day volume of around $56 million, while Canary's own XRP ETF also had roughly $58 million on its first day. INJC's initial day turnover, calculated based on the share price, amounted to only the tens-of-thousands-of-dollars range. The structural milestone of the "first US staked INJ ETF" has been realized, but authorized participants and external capital did not flood in on the listing day.
The fund's design is relatively straightforward. It holds INJ and normally targets staking at least 90% of it, keeping the remainder available for redemption liquidity. Since the Injective network has a 21-day unbonding period, the fund cannot lock up all its assets.
Additionally, rewards are not distributed directly as cash to investors but are rolled into the daily NAV, causing the number of INJ tokens per share to increase gradually. On the fee side, there is a 1.10% annual management fee, plus about 30% of the staking rewards are taken as a fee.
Based on current INJ network staking yields, the net return investors ultimately receive will likely hover around 4%, rather than the near 7% nominal figure presented in marketing materials. Europe already has staking products like 21Shares' AINJ. This time in the US, it primarily fills the gap for regular brokerage accounts and IRA accounts.
For INJ itself, this channel currently serves more of a narrative purpose.
INJ's market cap is around $800 million, with approximately half of its supply already staked. The 1.91 million INJ held by the fund is quite small relative to the total circulating supply. Even if capital flows in subsequently, the actual impact on spot supply and demand will take time to materialize.
More importantly, whether authorized participants continue to subscribe, if AUM can grow beyond the $15 million seed size, and if trading volume and premium/discount rates can stabilize—these are the true indicators for validating demand. The nearly unattended trading volume on the first day already indicates that this channel has not yet been widely utilized.
From a longer-term perspective, the emergence of such products is hardly unexpected.
US crypto ETFs have expanded from BTC and ETH to Solana and XRP, with the next step being smaller-cap public blockchains that offer staking yields. Canary has previously launched products like Staked TRX under a similar logic: using familiar brokerage account structures to package on-chain yields into tradable shares.
The issue lies in how stacked fees, liquidity constraints from unbonding periods, and the scale and liquidity of the underlying assets themselves create gaps between actual experience and expectations.
For users accustomed to self-staking, this product addresses the need for "not wanting to manage wallets and keys"; for institutions or more cautious capital, it provides a compliant channel.
Current data suggests that while the channel has been opened, capital has not yet followed.