Eric Chen
Eric Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs, the core development company behind Injective, a finance-focused, interoperable layer1 blockchain. He is also described as CEO of the Injective Foundation, working on trading strategies and protocol research in decentralized finance, and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2024 for his work on Injective.[5][7][6] Prior to Injective, he was a researcher at Innovating Capital working on trading strategies and protocol research.[1]
Early Life & Education
Eric Chen attended New York University, where he studied business and computer science, before leaving to work on Injective full time.[5]
Career
Chen was a research fellow at Huizhou Desay Sv Automotive Co, Ltd between June and August 2014. After this, he was involved in risk analysis and algorithmic trading while working with Sino Partners Fund for about three months in 2014. He subsequently assisted with the construction of mutual fund products in Essence Fund Management (located in China) as a researcher between December 2016 and January 2017. He later worked at Innovating Capital as a researcher between September 2017 and October 2018, focusing on protocol and strategies research. During this period, he was also part of the NYU Blockchain Labs, working in roles between an analyst and researcher before co-founding Injective Labs.[5]
Injective
Eric Chen began engaging with crypto and blockchain technology in high school, when he first mined Bitcoin around 2012. He has stated that he became more formally involved in crypto in 2017 by contributing development work to open-source projects, including becoming interested in Filecoin after hearing Juan Benet describe it.[4][5][3] After his research roles at NYU Blockchain Labs and Innovating Capital, Chen co-founded Injective Labs with Albert Chon in 2018, and Injective Labs went on to launch Injective as a finance-focused, interoperable layer-1 blockchain for decentralized finance applications.[2]
Chen has described Injective Protocol as an end-to-end decentralized protocol that enables decentralized perpetual swaps, futures and spot trading, characterizing it as a layer-2 protocol for fast and secure trading on top of Ethereum.[3] He has said that it aims to improve the usability and security of DeFi by addressing issues such as latency, liquidity and user experience, and that his goal is for DEX users to have a trading experience closer to that of centralized exchanges.[2] According to Chen, the Injective protocol is designed so that its components are fully trustless, censorship-resistant, publicly verifiable and resistant to front-running.[1] The protocol received incubation from Binance Labs, and a funding round was raised and led by Pantera Capital.[1]
Recognition
Chen has been listed as CEO of the Injective Foundation and featured as a speaker at conferences such as CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025.[6] In 2024, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work on Injective, as noted in his speaker profiles with industry organizations.[7][6]
