What is a SHIB Coin?
The growth and development of meme coins in the cryptocurrency space cannot be stopped.
This is due to several factors, but the main ingredient of its success is the support of a strong community rather than a real-world utility.
In this article, we will try to know if the SHIB currency has a purpose, the history with the total supply of Shiba Inu, and explore Shiba Inu vs. Dogecoin.
Shiba Inu is the original Japanese dog breed used as the symbol for Dogecoin. In 2020, an anonymous person or group named Ryoshi created a token named after the animal to continue the dog meme series of cryptocurrencies. After gaining a lot of value in 2021, it officially became Dogecoin’s rival, leading Floki Inu, Akita Inu, and Dogelon Mars.
The Shiba Inu ecosystem is based on the guiding principles outlined in the “woof document,” the canine version of a white paper that outlines the outlines and roadmaps of cryptocurrency projects. SHIB is an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum, and Ethereum was chosen over other platforms because it is already robust, secure, well-established, and enables true decentralization.
In the one-year range, from August 2020, when the cryptocurrency was created, to October 2021, the SHIB coin rose from a low of $0.000000000056 to an all-time high of $0.00008616, rising an incredible 150 million percent.
Its popularity and success is mainly due to the large cryptocurrency community of SHIB supporters, the so-called ShibArmy, and online influencers who help push the price up. The official cryptocurrency Twitter account, for example, is followed by 2.2 million people, more than other major coins like Solana (1 million followers) or Cardano (1.1 million followers), or even Ethereum (1 .9 million followers). Overall, the price of SHIB gained more than 27,000,000% from January to October 2021.
For a long time, the SHIB token has been considered a pump-and-dump cryptocurrency, mainly because it has been difficult for users in the world really understand its usefulness. However, their website mentions that the Shiba token is “A decentralized meme token that evolved into a vibrant ecosystem” and it touched the hearts of its people because the popularity of the dog breed resonated with the crypto community.
Additionally, a pivotal moment in the coin’s history was the generous $1 billion donation in SHIB that Ethereum Principal Engineer and Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin gave to help combat the devastating spread of COVID-19 in India, making it which makes it the largest donation ever made in history.
The Shiba Inu’s Total Supply
The first unique component of the Shiba Inu ecosystem is its total supply. An impressive quadrillion (1+15 zeros) SHIB tokens were minted at the start of August 2020, the largest number of coins ever generated in the crypto space.
Upon its release, 50% of the Shiba Inu supply was locked up on the decentralized exchange Uniswap. Here, users make automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and earn and trade crypto through smart contracts.
The system is also known as an Automated Market Making Protocol (AMM) which incentivizes users to become liquidity providers in exchange for a portion of transaction fees and free tokens.
SHIB’s Ryoshi transferred the other half of the token supply to Vitalik Buterin, apparently hoping he would lock them up forever. This decision generated criticism in the crypto ecosystem: why transfer such a large amount to someone so rich and what would he do with it?
Buterin appeased the community when he returned half of his properties to the India Covid Relief Fund. However, it still owned 45% of the total SHIB supply, raising questions about the true decentralization of SHIB and its susceptibility to future volatility.
After receiving considerable objections, the Ethereum co-founder completed a record burn of 410.24 trillion SHIB (approximately $6.6 billion), equal to 40% of the total supply, which was permanently removed from circulation.
How many Shiba Inu coins are burned in total? Some 41% of the coins are burned, meaning they are no longer in circulation, including the large number sent to Buterin, who then burned most of them, as mentioned above.
SHIB is not the only canine cryptocurrency sent to the co-founder of Ethereum. Dogelon (ELON) and Akita Inu (AKITA), to name a few, were also sent to Buterin’s crypto address in a move to gain some publicity due to the popularity of the prominent figure.
The decision to send 50% of the coins in circulation to Buterin was probably dangerous and did not comply with the decentralization standards of the blockchain. However, in the words of the developers, regarding the generous giving to Vitalik, “there is no greatness without a vulnerable point, and as long as VB doesn’t bother us, then Shiba will grow and survive”.
Does the Shiba coin have a purpose?
Meme coins are famous for being powered by their community support more than anything else. This concept is what mainly drives its development and its price. While many do not see the utility of such a purpose, members of the community believe that this is what real decentralization should be and what will help cryptocurrencies grow.
The crucial concept is that no central authority controls the fate of the currency. Instead, a community of followers drives you to success, which many believe to be an empowering notion.
The official Shiba token website mentions that the project is an experiment in building a spontaneous decentralized community to put power back in the hands of the average person. It resonates with the rise in popularity of meme stocks in early 2021 when GME (GameStop Corp) demonstrated the power of decentralization in the world.
How many SHIB coins are there?
The Shiba Inu tokenomics relies on the following three tokens:
- Shiba Inu (SHIB): This is the predominant currency of the project, which had a total supply of 1 quadrillion tokens when it launched. It can be redeemed for any of the ERC20 tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem.
- Leash (LEASH): As the second token in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, LEASH has a total supply of only 107,646 tokens and was initially a rebase token linked to the price of Dogecoin. A rebase token has a flexible monetary base in the sense that its supply is set to increase or decrease to adjust the price of the token without affecting the value of anyone’s share of coins. Subsequently, the rebase function was permanently disabled and the token reverted to its ERC20 design.
- Bone (BONE): Only available on ShibaSwap, and with a total supply of 250,000,000 tokens, BONE is set to fit in between the other two tokens in terms of circulation supply. It is a governance token that will allow the ShibArmy to vote on proposals in 2022. The more BONE users own, the more weight their vote will have in the decision process for future projects.
The Shiba Inu ecosystem also includes the following tools:
- ShibaSwap: The Decentralized Exchange (DEX) for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is where users should find a safe place to trade crypto without the limits of a centralized platform. We will delve into this concept below.
- Shiba Inu Incubator: Formerly known as the Artist Incubator, this is where the talented people of the ShibArmy can express their creativity and build their works of art.
- Shiboshis: Shiboshis are 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFT) generated in the Shiba Inu ecosystem and permanently registered in the Ethereum blockchain, with different characteristics that make them unique and collectible. They can be bought and traded on the popular OpenSea and ShibaSwap NFT platforms free of charge.
What is ShibaSwap?
The huge success of the Shiba experiment has pushed its developers to build another project, decentralized online exchange with other platforms like UniSwap and SushiSwap.
But why trade and not trade? What is the difference?
The concept is similar. However, in 2017, it became clear that there was a need to “trade” tokens instead of exchanging them in the traditional sense. Also, a trader would typically use Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH) to buy or sell altcoins through a regular exchange. With “atomic swaps”, there would be an instant exchange of digital assets between different blockchains without an intermediary.
Atomic swaps have now been replaced by wrapped tokens, where DeFi originates. Unlike centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, DeFi platforms like Uniswap, SushiSwap, and now ShibaSwap allow traders to trade tokens without order books, custodians, or intermediate points of failure of any kind.
The ShibaSwap launch date was July 6, 2021 and it generated a lot of excitement in the ShibArmy, who were looking forward to the launch of the platform as a pivotal moment in the life of the cryptocurrency.
The ShibaSwap exchange is an automated market maker (AMM) that works through smart contracts and allows traders to trade assets automatically without excessive order books or trading fees. It is inspired by the first and most popular platform, Uniswap. However, the main difference lies in the six-month lock-in rule for 67% of cryptocurrencies invested to provide maximum liquidity. By locking up their assets, investors earn some interest.
SHIB, LEASH, and BONE are traded on ShibaSwap in a unique way, considered the next evolution in DeFi platforms. ShibaSwap users can DIG (provide liquidity), BURY (participate), and SWAP any of the three Shiba Inu tokens (SHIB, LEASH, and BONE) to earn “WOOF” profits through a sophisticated passive income reward system and innovative.
Shiba Inu vs Dogecoin
Shiba Inu is considered the Dogecoin killer as his team believes that its value will exceed the value of Dogecoin. Starting with what they have in common, we highlight that they both originate from the Shiba Inu dog breed, which has become a popular meme. Both have a significant community of loyal fans who support and determine their success.
Both cryptocurrencies are mainly based on the advertising that influencers provide through popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, where their goals and developments are often also announced.
Here are the main differences between the two main
dogs. How to buy Shiba Inu
SHIB and LEASH can be bought and sold through ShibaSwap, Uniswap, and a growing number of centralized exchanges (CEX). On September 16, 2021, the SHIB token was listed on Coinbase, which joined other popular centralized platforms such as Binance, Huobi, and Kucoin in facilitating SHIB trading.
On the other hand, disappointingly for SHIB supporters, US financial services platform Robinhood has been reluctant to list the cryptocurrency because, in the words of its CEO, “SHIB is not secure enough yet.” Robinhood’s US rival Public.com listed the token in October 2021.
The Shiba Inu development team is tight-lipped about the coin’s roadmap. Therefore, it is quite difficult to anticipate what is in the cards for cryptocurrency in the near future. The developers could decide to burn other currencies to make SHIB more deflationary than it is now and help with price appreciation. We recently learned that Shiba is preparing to enter the Metaverse and will soon be burning more SHIB, further reducing the total supply.
