Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an Ethereum-based coin that features the Shiba Inu—a Japanese breed of hunting dog—as its mascot. Shiba Inu dubbed itself as the 'Dogecoin killer' since it was created in August 2020 and aspires to be an Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin (DOGE), the popular memecoin.
The Shiba Inu ecosystem consists of the following three tokens:
- Shiba Inu (SHIB): This is the project's foundational currency. Starting with a supply of 1 quadrillion, Ryoshi locked 50% in Uniswap and then sent the other 50% to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin for safekeeping. In May 2021, Buterin donated more than 50 trillion Shiba Inu coins, then worth over $1 billion, to a COVID-19 relief fund in India. Shortly thereafter, Buterin also burned 40% of Shiba Inu's total supply to a so-called dead wallet.
- Leash (LEASH): The second token in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, with a total supply of only 107,646 tokens.
- Bone (BONE): Bone fits in between the other two tokens in terms of circulation supply, with a total supply of 250,000,000 tokens. It is designed to be a governance token that will allow the SHIBArmy to vote on upcoming proposals.
In addition to the initial claim to be an Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB) also has the following features:
- ShibaSwap: The goal of DeFi platform ShibaSwap is to provide a safe place to trade cryptocurrencies while remaining decentralized
- Shiba Inu Incubator: The incubator aims to shift the focus beyond popular art forms such as painting, photography, and digital rendering and discover ways to honor creativity and ingenuity.15
- Shiboshis: Shiboshis are 10,000 Shiba Inu-generated non-fungible tokens (NFTs) written on the Ethereum blockchain, with different traits that make each Shiboshi unique and collectible.
- Shiba Inu Rescue Association: users who purchase via Amazon Smile can donate to the Shiba Inu Rescue Association which aims to improve the lived of Shiba Inu.
An anonymous developer named Ryoshi launched SHIB in August 2020. The project began with a total supply of one quadrillion tokens which is a truly vast number.
SHIB, unlike DOGE, is compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem — which has allowed the community to create crypto apps like ShibaSwap, a DEX that allows users to trade and stake tokens without an intermediary. In the future, the Shiba community plans to release an NFT platform and DAO-based governance system for the Shiba ecosystem (called “DoggyDAO”).
