What Is SHIBA INU (SHIB)?

SHIB is a decentralized, community-led currency held by millions across the globe. Since its inception in late 2020, the Ethereum-based SHIB token has grown to become a worldwide phenomenon, and is now accepted as a form of payment at hundreds of locations, either directly or through third-party intermediaries.

Shiba Inu coin was created anonymously in August 2020 under the pseudonym "Ryoshi." Ryoshi says about himself that he is a nobody and not important and that the efforts to unmask his identity, even if successful, would be underwhelming.

This meme coin quickly gained speed and value as a community of investors was drawn in by the cute charm of the coin paired with headlines and tweets from personalities like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin.

Since release SHIB now trades on the ecosystem's proprietary DEX, ShibaSwap.

Who Are the Founders of SHIBA INU?

The SHIBA INU WoofPaper has three reasons why their team created SHIB:

1. "We started from zero, with zero."
2. "The brilliant minds behind Shib had never collaborated before."
3. "We love Shiba Inu Dogs."

The anonymous creator of the Shiba Inu coin is known as "Ryoshi." However, very little is known of the mystery founder of the dog-themed cryptocurrency, much like the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

In his blog RYOSHI RESEARCH, he characterizes himself as "just some guy of no consequence tapping at a keyboard." Ryoshi said that usually in projects there are different roles like a CEO, a "tech guy," and a roadmap, resulting in "someone plebs can bitch at." He stresses that with Shiba, no one person is accountable or responsible and underlines that he owns 0 SHIB to this day. For this reason, Ryoshi can be "pure and unbiased," getting satisfaction from Shiba "in other ways."

It has been speculated that Vitalik Buterin was behind the initial liquidity that helped set up Shiba Inu's liquidity on Uniswap. According to Ryoshi, he had "a fren" he met at Devcon in Osaka that sent him 10 ETH to set up the liquidity pair on Uniswap. Ryoshi also stated that Shiba Inu was an experiment in decentralized community building, and he thus declined all the influencer requests and pitches from different exchanges he received. His "job" is to defend the brand and give suggestions, although he does so very sparingly, as his last blog entry dates back to May 2021.

What Makes SHIBA INU Unique?

Ryoshi's intention for Shiba Inu has been to see if a perpetual decentralized organization could work with no central leadership. In mid-2021, Ryoshi kept to his promise and stepped away, leaving the token entirely in the community's hands.

The experiment was a succes, and in October 2021 SHIB briefly flipped Dogecoin to become the most-valued meme coin by market capitalization. Robinhood executive Christine Brown has lauded the efforts of the Shiba Inu community, saying that one of her favorite things was seeing it engage with the community to make its wishes heard.

The price surge also led to increased adoption across token holders. WhaleStats compiled data of the largest ETH wallets and found that SHIB represents over 20% of the combined market shares of all ERC-20 tokens held by Ethereum whales. CRO was a distant second with only 5%. SHIB also surpassed the one-million holder mark following its all-time high.

Additionally, retailers increasingly started adopting SHIB as a means of payment following its popularity among small-time investors. American electronics retailer Newegg added SHIB at the start of December 2021, partnering with crypto payments platform BitPay to unlock payments in SHIB. This followed the adoption of SHIB by over 500 merchants, according to payments firm CoinGate, with even Samsung-backed digital wallet provider ZenGo adding SHIB to its options and a restaurant in Paris accepting it as a payment option. At one point, the Shiba Inu community called for McDonald's to accept Shiba Inu, although the social media effort eventually fell short.

A major reason for the surging price of SHIB was a continued effort by the SHIB community to build a utility for the Shiba Inu token and the subsequent emergence of an entire Shiba Inu ecosystem.

ShibaSwap is the coin's designated DEX that started as a fork of Sushiswap that has, in the words of Ryoshi, its "own little twists and elements." Furthermore, Shiba Inu also plans to develop SHI, which will be the "global exchange of value for plebs," an algorithmic stablecoin pegged to one cent instead of one dollar as most other stablecoins.

According to Ryoshi, the end goal is that SHI becomes a global stable currency "that plebs across all countries are able to use as both a store of value and method of payment."

In addition to SHI, a financial ecosystem is planned, and SHI would be added as a weighted pool pair on Curve. In that case, Ryoshi expects forks of the major DeFi protocols to appear in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, which would require an immutable bridge to function.

SHIB: The Metaverse and Shibarium

While looking to expand the utility of SHIB, the development team introduced a metaverse — a virtual reality project powered by non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Here, users can mint parcels of digital lands using ETH or its equivalent amount in SHIB tokens.

According to the team, the goal is to create a fun, immersive and interactive environment where users can explore, earn passive income and collect in-game resources. Importantly, the metaverse will allow users to develop and launch their own projects. In total, there are 100,595 plots of land on SHIB: The Metaverse. Of the total, 36,431 digital lands were unlocked on April 13, 2022 – the launch date of the introductory phase of the metaverse.

How Many SHIBA INU (SHIB) Coins Are There in Circulation?

The SHIBA INU website notes that they locked 50% of the total token supply on Uniswap, and "threw away the keys!" The remaining 50% was "burned to Vitalik Buterin." In response to the "gift" from the Shiba Inu team, Vitalik Buterin sent 50 trillion SHIB tokens, worth $1 billion in Shiba Inu price at that time, to India's Covid Crypto Relief Fund. Buterin then burned 40% of the total supply to a dead wallet.

How Is the SHIBA INU Network Secured?

According to 22-page-long SHIB's WoofPaper, SHIB is an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum, a proof-of-work blockchain currently transitioning to proof-of-stake.

Where Can You Buy SHIBA INU (SHIB)?

It is possible to buy Shiba Inu on Binance, Huobi, Coinbase, Gate.io, Uniswap (V2) and OKEx, among other exchanges.

To check Shiba Inu price live in the fiat currency of your choice, you can use CoinMarketCap's converter feature directly on the Shiba Inu currency page. Alternatively, use the dedicated exchange rate converter page. Popular Shiba Inu price pairs include: SHIB/USD, SHIB/GBP, SHIB/AUD and SHIB/EUR.

For more information about how to buy crypto with fiat, check out CoinMarketCap's education portal — Alexandria.