Ethereum’s New Challenger: Injective Launches CW-404 to Shake Up the Token Economy

• ERC-404 has taken off and attracted millions of dollars, and to capitalize on the hype, Injective has launched CW-404, its version of the experimental Ethereum token standard.
• Injective has partnered with DojoSwap and Helix to offer users decentralized trading options where they can swap and provide liquidity, with more partnerships planned for the near future.

Injective has announced the launch of CW-404, its version of ERC-404, an Ethereum token standard that launched recently but has become wildly popular.

Injective, a Layer 1 blockchain network that’s massively scalable with some of the cheapest fees, announced the new CW-404 recently, describing it as “a standard [that]is simply awaiting innovative applications.” It has partnered on the initiative with DojoSwap, the largest decentralized exchange on the Injective network.

1/ Injective today is releasing the CW404 standard in collaboration with @Dojo_Swap

CW404 brings the massively popular ERC-404 standard to the fastest blockchain with the lowest fees, scaling fractional NFT standards to entirely new heights. pic.twitter.com/5cNBLA28Tn

— Injective (@Injective_) February 23, 2024

CW-404 is modeled after ERC-404, a token standard launched on Ethereum earlier this month by two pseudonymous developers–’ctrl’ and ‘Acme.’

Essentially, ERC-404 is a standard that connects ERC-20, Ethereum’s fungible token standard, and ERC-721, the non-fungible token (NFT) standard. Simply put, ERC-404 tokens are semi-fungible in that they can be either fungible or non-fungible, depending on the application.

The first application of ERC-404 was with Pandora, a project that launched 10,000 NFTs linked to 10,000 PANDORA tokens. In essence, the NFTs were created using ERC-721 while the tokens that represented them were created using ERC-20.

In two weeks, Pandora had shot up and attracted close to $100 million in trading volume. At press time, it had processed $134 million despite a dip in the past week. The PANDORA fungible tokens at one point skyrocketed by 12,500% to trade at over $30,000.

Additionally, top platforms, including Binance Web3 Wallet have started supporting these tokens.

Clearly, the ERC-404 token is catching on, with Injective observing that all these factors “show us how it’s not simply a fad, but that the standard is simply awaiting innovative applications.”

Injective Challenges Ethereum With CW-404

Injective has been offering users a scalable and cheap Layer 1 alternative to Ethereum, and it was quick to catch up with the new token standard, launching CW-404 to offer semi-fungibility.

In its blog post announcing the new standard, it noted:

The CW404 standard aims to be a port of the original ERC404 standard with bug fixes as well as patches that are applied to allow the token standard to conform more similarly to the function signatures of the existing CW20 and CW721 standards.

Injective says that its network is more suited for semi-fungible tokens than Ethereum. For one, it has lower gas fees due to its gas compression technology. It added:

Imagine a $60 average ERC404 transaction cost versus an average of $0.05 CW404 transaction cost. This represents a 1000x in savings! Users are free to speculate on their favourite 404 tokens without worrying about gas costs eating into their bottom line.

Additionally, CW-404 tokens will have high liquidity as they are supported by DojoSwap and Helix, two highly liquid DEX platforms. DojoSwap has already minted the first-ever tokens under the new standard—the Sushi Fighter NFT.