Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a Memecoin project on Ethereum. The project was created in August 2020 by an anonymous developer (or a group of people) pseudonymous Ryoshi, aiming to compete with the first-generation meme coin, Dogecoin (DOGE), which is why it has the nickname "Doge" Nicknamed "Coin Killer".

SHIB is the project’s base ERC-20 token. It is currently one of the cryptocurrencies with the highest market capitalization, ranking 16th among all currencies included in TokenInsight.

SHIB’s initial supply is 1000 trillion, the current circulating supply is 589.33 trillion, and the maximum supply is 999.98 trillion. The token took the form of a Fair Launch when it was launched, that is, the team did not pre-mine or hold the token. Ryoshi sent 50% to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, which is equivalent to locking half of the circulation; the other 50% was paired with 10ETH and put into the fund pool of the corresponding trading pair on Uniswap.

It is worth mentioning that in May 2021, Buterin destroyed 90% of his SHIB holdings (about 40% of the total supply), which was worth approximately US$6.7 billion based on the price at that time. . The remaining 10%, Buterin donated to India's Covid-19 relief fund.

After years of development, the SHIB project seems to have been committed to getting rid of the Meme label and continues to try innovations in various fields. It has evolved from a Shiba Inu-themed, entertainment-rich fan Because of the currency, it has developed into a decentralized ecosystem with rich elements and a huge community (namely "ShibArmy"). However, such a decentralized development direction has also brought a lot of doubts to SHIB: If it does everything, does it mean that it cannot do anything well? Is it necessary for a meme coin project to go through so much trouble?

First, let’s take a look at what SHIB has done outside of meme coins.

Shiba Inu’s complex ecosystem

Decentralized exchange Shibaswap and three tokens

Shibaswap is the project of Shiba Inu The DEX, launched in July 2021, provides similar services to other DEXs, including buying and selling tokens, participating in liquidity staking, managing NFTs, and more. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain and aims to provide a secure exchange for cryptocurrency traders while keeping the market decentralized.

Shibaswap drives ecological operations through three tokens. In addition to the core SHIB token of the entire "Shiba Inu Universe", there are also two ERC-20 tokens: Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) and Doge Killer (LEASH) .

BONE is the governance token of the Shibaswap ecosystem, with a total supply of 250,000,000. BONE is designed to allow ShibArmy to vote on proposals and participate in platform governance through the governance mechanism (Doggy DAO). In addition, BONE is also the foundation of Layer 2 (Shibarium) in the SHIB ecosystem, which we will further explain later.

LEASH is an ERC-20 token with a total supply of only 107,646. It was originally set up as a rebasing token pegged to the Dogecoin price and is currently used to facilitate liquidity on exchanges. When users provide liquidity to pools (“Puppy Pools”) on Shibaswap, they receive LEASH in return.

Rebasing tokens can also become elastic supply tokens, which will dynamically adjust their circulation according to the price of the linked assets. Its core purpose is to make the user's currency holdings consistent with the total supply. The volume maintains a certain ratio, thereby stabilizing the actual value of the position.

Layer 2 Network Shibarium

Shiba Inu launched the Shibarium mainnet on August 16, 2023, which is an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution. This Layer 2 solution is designed to provide a more scalable and cost-effective trading platform for Ethereum, and will focus on the Metaverse and GameFi space.

Shibarium is built on a new consensus mechanism called Proof of Participation (PoP), where the network selects validators in proportion to the amount of relevant cryptocurrencies held. Users need to lock 10,000 BONE in the Shibarium network to become a validator. 21 million BONE will also be used as rewards for validators and delegators within the Shibarium ecosystem, and will be used to pay gas fees.

NFT and NFT games

In October 2021, the SHIB team launched 10,000 Shiboshi NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, and all NFTs were sold out within 34 minutes.

Shiboshis are the cornerstone of SHIB’s subsequent development in the NFT field. Currently, Shiba Eternity, an NFT card game based on Shiboshi, has been launched in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, with over 100,000 downloads.

Shib The Metaverse

Simply speaking, this is a Metaverse project similar to Decentraland. The main game content is "land buying and selling" and the creation of derivative digital assets and value.

This product is not yet officially launched. According to the information released by the SHIB team on the Blog in April this year, Metaverse products will be officially launched at the end of 2023.

Development status: Have SHIB’s efforts paid off?

Maybe not so optimistic at the moment. Let’s take Shibaswap first.

Although it refers to the "vampire strategy" used by Sushiswap in the past, hoping to win Uniswap's LP by providing rewards, and now all the functions of Shibaswap have not been officially launched, and the conclusion is not comprehensive enough, but We still have to say that this DEX may not have attracted much market attention. According to data from TokenInsight, Shibaswap’s average daily spot trading volume is currently around $1.6M, and this data is not very impressive for an exchange endorsed by the Top 20 cryptocurrency projects.

Let’s take a look at Shibarium, which built a lot of momentum before going online.

On August 17, 2023, the SHIB team announced that Shibarium was officially launched. What is unexpected is that this time, project tokens such as SHIB and BONE not only failed to gain traction, but also experienced a wave of decline. The reason is that Shibarium exposed some technical problems shortly after it went online and stopped producing blocks.

Lead developer Shytoshi said his team was unable to restore assets bridged to the Shibarium network, according to screenshots of an internal Telegram conversation between Shibarium developers.

Crypto detective ZachXBT said that he has not yet confirmed whether the assets are actually lost, but Pointing out that RPC (the node running key blockchain client software) is no longer operational, and calling the block explorer Shibarium Scan “very bad”.

Although the developers later said that Shibarium does not have cross-chain bridge problems , the funds stuck on the bridge are also safe, and Shibarium has since been re-launched. However, it has to be said that the debut of the new product seems to have deepened the market’s inherent impression of the SHIB team’s “busy work.”

As for the Metaverse products planned to be launched at the end of this year, we can choose to wait and see first - after all, it seems that the relevant design is not yet very complete, and it is not as advanced as the head projects on the track. Nothing particularly differentiating or outstanding.

Summary

As a meme coin project, SHIB is indeed very different. Not only does it have a lifespan far beyond the average of the meme coin circuit, it also strives to build more "real things" beyond the Meme narrative.

We can still expect that with the team’s continued BUIDL and community support, SHIB can create a complete, viable, and more interesting blockchain ecosystem; or perhaps, the future market When the overall trend is higher, it can bring a new wave of opportunities to SHIB. But now, after experiencing a series of mistakes by Shibarium, perhaps Shib The Metaverse, which will be launched at the end of the year, is the next "life-threatening" node that SHIB faces - it will reveal to us whether Shiba Inu is going to take off the Meme hat, we still need to provide the market with another meme that makes people laugh or cry.