12 min readShiba Inu coin is a “meme coin” that caught the attention of crypto enthusiasts over the last few years. The coin is one of the largest of the “dog coins” and a direct competitor to Dogecoin. Shiba Inu is a retail trader’s favorite and therefore has many fans.
Definition & Meaning
Shiba Inu is a decentralized, community-building cryptocurrency that runs within its own ecosystem. The Shiba Inu ecosystem is built on the Ethereum network, allowing the coin to interact with and handle smart contracts.
The Shiba Inu coin was originally an experiment to make microtransactions and fight rival Dogecoin. However, the coin tends to be very volatile, as a lot of its “hype” is about the community around it, which can wane sometimes.
What is Shiba Inu Coin?
Shiba Inu coin is a cryptocurrency built on top of the Ethereum network and works within its own ecosystem. By being built on Ethereum, it can work with smart contracts, unlike Dogecoin, its biggest competitor.
The coin is driven by its potential to utilize smart contracts but, more than anything else, social media hype. Because of this and the small price of each coin, volatility is the main feature for traders.
Shiba Inu (SHIB) History
In August 2020, an anonymous person calling himself “Ryoshi” created the Shiba Inu coin. The creator has remained unknown since, much like the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The reality is that Ryoshi could be a handful of people anywhere in the world.
It was created as an altcoin of Dogecoin, an altcoin of Bitcoin. It was named after the wildly popular Japanese dog breed, Shiba Inu.
The coin is popular on multiple exchanges and is followed by many people on places like Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram.
Who Are the Founders of SHIBA INU?
Much like Bitcoin, the founder of Shiba Inu is anonymous. The creator goes by the pseudonym “Ryoshi” and has a blog called “Ryoshi Research.” He has described himself as “just some guy of no consequence tapping at a keyboard.”
He claims that he owns none of the coins to keep himself unbiased and pure, claiming to get satisfaction from Shiba Inu in “other ways.” The team that created Shiba Inu has listed in the Shiba Inu “WoofPaper” (White Paper) that they made Shiba Inu for three main reasons, including:
- “We started from zero, with zero.”
- “The brilliant minds behind Shiba Inu had never collaborated before.”
- “We love Shiba Inu dogs.”
How Does Shiba Inu Coin Work?
Shiba Inu is an ecosystem that has been launched on the Ethereum network. Shiba Inu has the same consensus mechanism as Ethereum, which initially was proof-of-work but has since migrated to proof-of-stake.Moving to proof-of-stake means that you can receive mining rewards based on how much of the coins you stake.
Shiba Inu tokens, abbreviated as SHIB, are ERC-20 tokens in the Ethereum network, making them fungible tokens, as each has an identical value.
What is the Total Supply of SHIB?
There’s an extraordinarily high supply of Shiba Inu coins. The total supply is one quadrillion, so even though the supply is limited, it is still far too large to be deflationary. As of 2022, there is roughly 425 trillion circulating SHIB.
Half of the total supply available of SHIB is locked on Uniswap. The other 50% was sent to a crypto address belonging to Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum.
Shiba Inu’s Vision
Shiba Inu has recently opened its DEX, or decentralized exchange. This was named ShibaSwap and allowed the user to swap SHIB tokens for others. This exchange is made to be the most decentralized and secure one in the world. (Shiba Inu’s words.)
The DEX will allow SHIB holders to earn interest using terms like DIG, BURY, FETCH, TREAT, and BONEFOLIO. By “digging” SHIB tokens, you provide liquidity to the SHIB pool and earn BONE tokens. BONE tokens are to be limited to 250 million and allow the holder to vote on system changes, etc.
LEASH is an even more coveted token, as there are only 107,647. The token is an ERC-20 token that is meant to be a “Doge Killer.” LEASH came within a few whiskers of $8900 on May 11, 2021. Traders can buy LEASH on Uniswap.
The Shiba Inu Ecosystem
The Shiba Inu ecosystem consists of three tokens, Shiba Inu (SHIB), Leash (LEASH), and Bone (BONE). It also consists of ShibaSwap and Shiba Inu Incubator.
The three tokens are described as follows:
- Shiba Inu (SHIB): Shiba Inu is the original and foundational currency of the ecosystem. Shiba Inu has a supply of one quadrillion coins, with Ryoshi locking in 50% in Uniswap for liquidity purposes and then sending the other 50% to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin for safekeeping. Buterin donated over 50 trillion Shiba Inu coins to a Covid-19 relief fund in India worth approximately $1 billion. Shortly after, he ended up burning, or permanently removed from circulation, 40% of Shiba Inu’s total supply to a dead wallet.
- Leash (LEASH): Leash is the second token in the ecosystem. It represents a complete change of pace from the original token, as it is limited to a total supply of only 107,646 tokens.
- Bone (BONE): Bone has 250 million tokens for supply and is designed to be a governance token that will allow users of the Shiba Inu ecosystem to vote on proposals.
Other parts of the Shiba Inu Ecosystem include:
- ShibaSwap: ShibaSwap is a DEX, or decentralized exchange, that provides a safe place to trade cryptocurrencies while remaining completely decentralized. SHIB and LEASH are a couple of the most commonly traded coins.
- Shiba Inu Incubator: The Shiba Inu Incubator is a program dedicated to finding other use cases beyond painting, photography, and digital rendering to recognize and award creativity.
How Many SHIBA INU (SHIB) Coins Are There in Circulation?
The Shiba Inu website states that 50% of the total SHIB token supply has been locked on Uniswap, with the “keys thrown away.” The remaining 50% was sent to Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, for safekeeping. He sent $1 billion worth of Shiba Inu at the time to India’s Covid Crypto Relief Fund. He then burned 40% of the total supply to a dead wallet.
LEASH has a limited supply, with only 107,646 tokens available, offering rewards to liquidity providers, while BONE has 250 million tokens and is coined “the Dogecoin Killer.” BONE is a governance token, allowing holders to vote on Shiba Inu’s Doggy decentralized autonomous organization.
Dog-themed meme tokens took off in May 2021, as transaction volumes were hundreds of millions of dollars. However, since then, these types of assets have been cooling off.
What is the Difference Between Shiba Inu Coin and Dogecoin?
When investing or trading Shina Inu, you will inevitably hear a lot of back and forth between those who support Shiba Inu and Dogecoin. Because of this, you need to understand the difference between the two coins.
| Shiba Inu | Dogecoin | |
| Use case | Still trying to find it, as most of the dynamic to price is based upon hype. However, there is a DEX now, called ShibaSwap. | DOGE has shown itself to be a medium of financial transaction, albeit in limited amounts. |
| Development | Built on the Ethereum network. | Built on Bitcoin technology. |
| Coins available | 394 million | 130 billion |
What Are the Advantages of Shiba Inu (SHIB)?
Shiba Inu is a wildly popular coin, so it is important to understand some of its advantages. While somewhat of a subjective list, some of the most important advantages include:
- Price: Because the price is so low, gaining in percentages is relatively easy. Like any other market, there are ups and downs, but you can see massive gains in percentage terms as it rallies.
- Smart contracts: SHIB can work with smart contracts, something Dogecoin cannot do. This is because Shiba Inu is built on top of the Ethereum network.
- High volumes traded: SHIB is a popular coin, so a lot of volume is traded daily. There have been times when SHIB traded more than $7 billion monthly.
What Are the Disadvantages of Shiba Inu (SHIB)?
While Shiba Inu is loved by many, it isn’t perfect. It is essential to know the disadvantages of Shiba Inu if you invest in it or trade it.
- Meme coin: Shiba Inu is a “meme coin.” In other words, it started as an experiment or a joke. However, it has since caught the attention of traders around the world. Shiba Inu now has its own DEX, suggesting that it is trying to be something else.
- Not an independent blockchain: Although unlikely, there is always the concern that the Shiba Inu ecosystem isn’t independent, and something could happen with Ethereum. Because of this, you also need to pay attention to the news with the Ethereum network.
- Massive competition: SHIB has a lot of competition. There are seemingly endless transactional coins out there, and SHIB will have to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
Is Shiba Inu a Good Investment?
As an investment, Shiba Inu is something that you will have to pay close attention to. After all, most of the bull cases for this coin are pure hype. Hype is something that can come and go rather rapidly, so this isn’t something that you will be buying and forgetting about for a long time. The fluctuations can be wild, so you should think more about Shiba Inu as a trading instrument.
The coin has been known to jump wildly just because someone like Elon Musk tweets about it. While it’s a good thing for the coin that someone well-known is paying attention to it, the reality is that unless they do something with the ecosystem, it’s a short-term boost at best. However, this doesn’t mean that you cannot trade it successfully. Therefore, trading it at PrimeXBT makes sense because you can trade coins via CFD markets, meaning you can buy or short them without taking the usual steps. You only worry about price and can get in or out quickly.
There have been a lot of “milestones” for SHIB, one of which is when big exchanges started to list the market. However, this still does nothing for adoption, and with the crypto markets being flooded with new coins, Shiba Inu will continue to be one of the coins in a vast sea of them.
Conclusion
Shiba Inu has a somewhat uncertain future. While it has already defied all odds by becoming popular, it has yet to take off in a use-case scenario. The fact that the coin relies so much on hype as a price driver is somewhat concerning.
However, it is worth pointing out that SHIB can work with smart contracts, and there is a DEX in the ecosystem. This means that the coin and ecosystem can do almost everything that the Ethereum network can do. Because of this, it’s always possible that the ecosystem gets a “Killer app” that people will like. Most smaller cryptocurrencies seek that “must-use app” to gain mainstream adoption.
Just because Shiba Inu started as a meme coin, it DOES have the possibility to become something much more serious. However, SHIB is a speculative asset and should be treated as such. If you choose to own it, SHIB should be part of a well-diversified portfolio.
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