The first INJ staking ETF in the U.S. debuts on Nasdaq, but first-day volume is only 2933 shares

Author: Kuli, TechFlow

Staking products for small- and mid-cap public blockchains have finally made their way into U.S. brokerage accounts, but first-day volume was almost negligible.

On November 5, Canary Capital's Canary Staked INJ ETF (ticker INJC) began trading on Nasdaq. This is the first staking ETF for Injective (INJ) listed in the United States.

Yahoo Finance data showed first-day volume of only about 2933 shares, with an opening price of $25.15, a high of $26.45, and a close of about $26.15. Canary's website showed net assets of about $15 million over the same period, corresponding to the seed subscription previously committed by the Injective Foundation. The fund holds about 1.91 million INJ, with an NAV of about $25 and a premium/discount close to 0.

Meanwhile, helped by the positive news, INJ itself rose 9% within 4 hours.

This figure looks especially thin compared with recent similar products.

Bitwise's Solana staking ETF had first-day volume of about $56 million, and Canary's own XRP ETF had about $58 million on its first day. INJC's first-day turnover, converted using the share price, was only in the tens of thousands of dollars. The product structure's 'first U.S. staked INJ ETF' has materialized, but authorized participants and external capital did not enter in large scale on listing day.

The fund's design is not complicated. It holds INJ and, under normal conditions, aims to stake at least 90%, leaving the remainder for redemption liquidity. The Injective network has a 21-day unbonding period, so the fund cannot lock all assets.

At the same time, rewards are not distributed directly as cash to investors; instead, they are rolled into the daily NAV, slowly increasing the amount of INJ represented by each share. On the fee side, there is a 1.10% annual management fee, plus about 30% of staking rewards deducted as fees.

Based on a rough calculation using the current staking yield of the INJ network, the net return investors ultimately receive is likelyto land around 4%, rather than the nominal figure of nearly 7% in promotional materialsEurope already has staking products such as 21Shares' AINJ; this U.S. launch mainly adds a channel through regular brokerage accounts and IRA accounts.

For INJ itself, this channel is currently more of a narrative.

INJ's market capitalization is around $800 million, and about half of its supply is already staked. The fund currently holds 1.91 million INJ, which is very small relative to total circulating supply. Even if subsequent inflows occur, the actual impact on spot supply and demand will take time to materialize.

More importantly, whether authorized participants continue to create shares, whether AUM can grow from the $15 million seed size, and whether volume and premium/discount can stabilize are the metrics that validate demand. The first-day volume, which was almost ignored, already shows that this channel is not yet widely used.

Over a longer cycle, the emergence of such products is not surprising.

U.S. crypto ETFs have expanded from BTC and ETH to Solana and XRP, and the next tier down consists of smaller-market-cap public blockchains with staking yields. Canary has previously launched products such as Staked TRX, with similar logic: using familiar brokerage account structures to package on-chain yields into tradable shares.

The issue is that fee stacking, liquidity constraints from unbonding periods, and the scale and liquidity of the underlying asset itself can create a gap between actual experience and expectations.

For users already accustomed to staking on their own, this product addresses the need to avoid managing wallets and keys; for institutions or more cautious capital, it provides a compliance channel.

Current data indicates that this channel has opened, but capital has not yet followed.

Source: TechFlow