Shiba Inu is a popular meme coin that was conceived out of the popularity of other memecoins, namely Dogecoin.
Like Bitcoin, Shiba Inu was created anonymously in August 2020 under the pseudonym “Ryoshi.” Ryoshi claimed that he was a nobody. The project team gave three reasons why they created Shiba Inu: “We started from zero, with zero”, “The brilliant minds behind Shib had never collaborated before.”, “We love Shiba Inu Dogs.”
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
The self-proclaimed “Dogecoin killer”, $SHIB took the logo of a Shiba Inu dog – the small Japanese breed. Also, like $DOGE, $SHIB attracted an internet-based cult-like following that resulted in enormous gains as well as massive volatility – attracting many seasoned crypto traders as well.
At one point, $SHIB passed $DOGE in market cap, the total value of all outstanding coins. Both SHIB and DOGE have often been in the Top 15 and boast a loyal following of HODLers. A significant difference between SHIB and DOGE is that $SHIB is an ERC-20 token built on Ethereum, while Dogecoin uses Scrypt proof-of-work mining.
Shiba’s success sparked a tidal wave of copycats, such as BitShiba, Shiba Fantom, Shibalana, King Shiba, SHIBAVAX, Captain Shibarrow, SHIBA2K22, SpookyShiba, ShibDoge and GamingShiba as well as countless others. In total, there are over a hundred Shiba Inu copies and the number keeps rising.
Adoption: Not just a meme coin
One of many dog-themed cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu, attracted investors who missed the Dogecoin pump from $0.0002 to nearly $0.75. Unlike hundreds of other tokens that pumped and dumped in 2021, $SHIB has kept its many holders and has also attracted dev teams to build out its ecosystem.
A decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap has been created and as of this writing has a total value locked (TVL) of over $220 million. It also features the first NFTs on $SHIB, called Shiboshis. Adding NFT support was another milestone that added legitimacy to what was once just a meme coin.
Shiba Inu also plans to develop SHI, an algorithmic stablecoin pegged to one cent instead of one dollar as other stablecoins. Its launch is planned after the Shiba layer-two solution called Shibarium, and Ryoshi envisions SHI to work in a similar way to DAI.
A Fortunate Wrinkle
A key event in Shiba Inu’s history could have made it infamous, but it took a turn for the greater good. Ryoshi sent 50% of the $SHIB supply to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, making him a billionaire. Vitalik publicly refused to endorse the project, warning others not to send him tokens without his permission. He donated 10% of his share to COVID relief in India and burned the other 90% of his tokens.
While this may have seemed negative at first, this resulted in one of the largest if not largest charity donations in crypto history, making $SHIB more than just a meme coin. Further, it decreased the supply of $SHIB, which many critics said was too plentiful, initially at one quadrillion tokens.
Continuing the charitable cause, SHIBA INU has also created a campaign using Amazon Smile to collect donations to rescue real, live Shiba Inu dogs with the Shiba Inu Rescue Association.
$SHIB has also continued burning tokens to create further deflation and increase the token’s value. There are currently just over 540 trillion $SHIB tokens in circulating supply.
How To Buy Shiba Inu (SHIB)
The simplest way to buy Shiba Inu is through TradeStation Crypto. Buy $SHIB or a variety of other cryptocurrencies today when you open a TradeStation Crypto Account
Further details on trading SHIB on TradeStation Crypto
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