What is Shiba Inu coin?

Shiba Inu, a direct rival to Dogecoin, was introduced in August 2020. Unlike Dogecoin, though, Shiba Inu’s unknown creator(s), known as Ryoshi, made several design decisions that have subsequently distinguished the token. According to Ryoshi, SHIB has “the capacity to exponentially surpass the value of dogecoin without ever crossing the $0.01 threshold.” To put it in context, SHIB was trading at $0.00002831 at the time of writing this article, a long way from $0.01. Despite this, its market cap has already surpassed that of Dogecoin.

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Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token that has gained popularity this year, owing to its dog-themed ecosystem, retail investor speculation on its price, and significant community involvement. The digital asset was inspired by the same-named Japanese breed of dog, which ignited a viral meme craze in 2013 and led to the establishment of the notorious dogecoin cryptocurrency. Shiba Inu, along with dogecoin and hundreds of other pet-inspired digital assets, has been dubbed “meme coins” by the industry.

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Typically, a meme coin provides little to no benefit to its owners when compared to more established cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether. In the case of Shiba Inu, however, the development team appears to be making a genuine effort to give additional value to SHIB holders, including the introduction of a decentralized exchange in July.

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Notably, the drive to give greater usefulness to users has resulted in the self-proclaimed “doge killer” being the market’s second-most popular meme coin. And, despite the fact that dogecoin’s market valuation is three times that of Shiba Inu at the time of writing, the underdog project has managed to develop and grow a significant community in less than two years.

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The overall supply of Shiba Inu is noteworthy. During its formal debut in 2020, a total of one quadrillion SHIB tokens were produced. A quadrillion is a number that has 15 zeros after it. Some 50% of the Shiba Inu supply was locked in the Uniswap SHIB/ETH liquidity pool – a decentralized exchange where users deposit pairs of assets into liquidity pools against which other investors can trade. This is referred to as an automated market maker system.

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The remaining 50% of the SHIB token supply was sent to Ethereum’s inventor, Vitalik Buterin, who burnt the vast majority of them by transferring them to a dead crypto wallet address. The leftover tokens (worth $1.2 billion at the time) were given to an Indian COVID-19 relief fund as well as other organizations.