NFTs on
@injective didn’t start with a marketplace.
They started with a question:
⭒What if an NFT could be traded like a financial asset?
In April 2022, Injective Pro listed what it described as the first BAYC floor-price perpetual, using a custom NFT price feed.
A Bored Ape was around 120 ETH, which was roughly $370,000 then, but you could trade its floor price with as little as $1.
You didn’t need to own the Ape. You could just take a position on where its floor price was going.
Injective’s mainnet was only about five months old then.
Then everything changed.
$INJ dipped roughly 85%, reaching around $1.13 in July 2022.
NFTs were falling too. The hype was drying up. People who came for quick flips were leaving, but Injective didn’t.
In November 2022, the Ninja Pass was introduced.
Holders got access to product betas, events, airdrops, whitelists and other opportunities. It even became a way into early ecosystem releases.
⭒ The NFT was no longer just something to look at.
It could open a door.
In June 2023, Talis opened Injective’s native NFT marketplace, and Zen became one of its first big moments.
It was a free mint.
Ninja Pass holders got a 24-hour head start before early Injective adopters could join.
x.com/injective/status/16675…
Around 47,000 Zen NFTs were minted across the three phases.
This opened the door for more NFTs on Injective. Premier Ninjas, Injective Quants, Panda Warrior, MASKED, InjHallas and Cult of Anons showed up over the years, each bringing new characters and communities with them.
By the end of 2023, Talis had recorded more than 200,000 INJ traded, 238,277 NFTs created and 46,348 sales, with more than 140,000 registered wallets.
People were not just testing NFTs anymore, it became a whole section of the ecosystem.
In 2024, the NFT market got cold.
The ERC-404 wave brought another experiment. Injective shipped CW-404 through DojoSwap, connecting CW-20 tokens with CW-721 NFTs and exploring fractional ownership and DeFi.
But outside Injective, the noise around NFTs was fading fast.
DappRadar later recorded 2024 as the worst year for NFT trading volume since 2020. Global volume fell to around $13.7B, down 19% from 2023.
Timelines got quieter.
Collections went quiet.
Prices dropped.
The question went from being “Which NFT should I buy?” to
“Does anyone still care about NFTs?”
This was
@xCultofAnons came in.
Not as the whole story.
It was the small moment that showed what was happening while the market was bearish.
The collection opened its public mint on Talis on July 27, 2024.
Originals.
Whitelist.
Whitelist first-come.
Public.
Then:
4,979 / 4,979.
Sold out.
⭒ The shocking part was not the numbers, It was when it happened.
The market had already moved on, but people still showed up.
There was no big metaverse promise. No guaranteed yield. No “this will change everything.”
Just the art, the characters and the people around them.
People were still minting, collecting, trading, and sharing whitelist spots around JPEGs when the market was saying it was no longer the cool thing to build around.
Meanwhile, the NFT story on Injective kept moving.
Rarible came with Injective EVM.
N1NJ4: ORIGIN pushed NFTs toward digital identity.
Tokenized music showed another direction, that an NFT can represent rights connected to a real piece of creative work, not just an image.
Injective’s NFT story was not built only when the market was giving NFTs attention.
The most relevant chapter of the story came after that attention disappeared.
@injective @InjectiveLounge @xCultofAnons
🥷 INJECTIVE ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN 1 🥷
🎯 TOPIC: Injective NFT history
Talk about the story of NFTs on
$INJ.
Highlight what they’ve achieved over the years, and how resilient they’ve been through the bear season.
Your task is simple: tell the chapter the market tried to write off, and show why the culture stayed.
How to participate:
1⃣ Quote this post with your original content.
2⃣ Follow and tag
@injective,
@xCultofAnons, and
@InjectiveLounge.
3⃣ Posts, threads, and graphics are all welcome.
📅 October 1 – October 4
⏰ Deadline: October 4, 3 PM UTC
🏆 Rewards: 20 INJ Pool + 1 Ninja Pass
Winners will be selected based on originality, clarity, and creativity.