The Evolution of Shiba Inu: from an Experiment to a Robust Ecosystem

Shiba Inu could be considered just a funny meme token one year ago, but it has become something much bigger by April 2022. SHIB was one of the first dog-related meme coins created in 2020–2021. They drew inspiration from the success of Dogecoin — a digital currency launched in 2013 as a joke and a way to make fun of numerous altcoins emerging on a daily basis in the early days of crypto.

Many meme tokens seem to have been created as a joke as well, but Shiba Inu is different. Starting as an experiment in building a decentralized community, SHIB evolved into a whole new ecosystem with several tokens, a decentralized exchange, and even a metaverse.

What Is Shiba Inu (SHIB)?

Shiba Inu was launched in August 2020, and like Bitcoin’s Satoshi, its founder is still unknown. However, he is still active in social media under the nickname of Ryoshi.

SHIB is sometimes referred to as “Dogecoin killer”, but that has never been the official name of the cryptocurrency. Rather, this name was given to one of the tokens in the Shiba ecosystem (LEASH). It is said that the idea to launch Shiba Inu emerged in 2019, when Ryoshi met his (also unknown) friend at a conference in Japan, and the latter inspired him and invested the first 10 ETH into the SHIB liquidity pool on Uniswap.

The cryptocurrency remained unknown to the masses until 2021, when Elon Musk tweeted he was going to buy a Shiba Inu pup. The token surged by 300% in just a few hours, and doge-related cryptos started popping up one after another (however, none of them has ever managed to approach Shiba Inu in terms of market cap).

What Do We Know About the Shiba Inu Team?

Little is known about the SHIB team — neither the official website nor the whitepaper (dubbed as the WOOFpaper) provide any details on the matter.

As mentioned, the founder of Shiba Inu is Ryoshi — a pseudonymous person or a group of people. Whoever they are, they haven’t made any considerable profits from the project — there have never been any pre-mined tokens or rewards for the founder. According to what we know, Ryoshi has never invested in the platform, and if they happen to own some tokens, that’s just because they’ve bought them on an exchange, just like other users.

Another evidence that Ryoshi is different from other altcoin founders is in one of his blog posts — he criticizes centralized exchanges and claims that they harm the development of a decentralized community. For projects like Shiba Inu, Ryoshi recommends using DEXes and P2P exchange.

Shona Inu is decentralized — Ryoshi doesn’t play the key role in the platform, while most of the ecosystem was created by SHIBArmy that includes a distributed team of developers and designers.

The only considerable token movement that happened because of Ryoshi was when in 2020, he sent a half of 1 quadrillion supply to Vitalik Buterin “for safekeeping.” The founder of Ethereum burned most of the tokens and sent the other part to the India COVID Relief Fund.

The Shiba Inu Network

The power of the community known as SHIBArmy is one of the core values of Shiba Inu. It comprises SHIB holders, promoters, and an anonymous group of developers who constantly improve the token and widen its use cases. In SHIBArmy, there are also designers and artists who collaborate with fashion, gaming industries, payment systems, etc., to broaden the influence of Shiba Inu.

Charity

SHIBArmy activity is not limited to technical advancement and partnerships. It is a very humane community that is also involved in charity. The tradition was established by the donation to the India COVID Fund, and now, one of the key projects is helping the Shiba Inu Rescue Association together with AmazonSmile. A part of the money that users pay goes to dog shelters, and that doesn’t imply additional costs — you can shop on Amazon as you usually do knowing you are also donating for charity.

The Shiba Inu Incubator

The Shiba Inu Incubator is a community of talented artists enabling them to express themselves. This is the way SHIB holders can step beyond the limits and get recognition in a decentralized community.

ShibaSwap DEX

ShibaSwap is the decentralized exchange and one of the backbones of the SHIB ecosystem. It works similarly to other DEXes and allows you to provide liquidity to pools, stake LP tokens, do yield farming, and earn passive income. Here, you can buy three main Shiba tokens — SHIB, LEASH, and BONE.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is the first asset and the key means of value exchange in the ecosystem. Doge Killer (LEASH) is a token with a limited total supply, it incentivizes the community members by offering rewards to those who provide liquidity on the DEX. With this token, you can also buy land in the Shibaverse (a metaverse yet to be fully released), trade Shiba-based NFTs, and more. ShibaSwap (BONE) is the governance token in the Doggy DAO.

ShibaSwap offers 6 main features.

Users can:

• Swap — buy and sell tokens available on ShibaSwap,
• Dig — provide liquidity to earn BONE token as a reward in yield farming,
• Bury — stake tokens (lock them in the network to earn rewards),
• Woof — stake liquidity pool (LP) tokens of ShibaSwap received after providing liquidity to pools in the DEX. Those who Woof can claim returns for staking.

Also, there are:

• NFT — you can buy, sell, and exchange over 10,000 Shiboshis available uniquely on ShibaSwap. The platform offers NFT airdrops from time to time.
• Doggy DAO — this decentralized autonomous organization has been recently launched in beta. It is fueled by tBONE — a staked version of the BONE token. In the DAO, you can vote for WOOF pools and determine how the BONE rewards will be distributed.

Shibarium

Shibarium is among the most anticipated updates in the Shiba Inu ecosystem and something that SHIB developers are working on today. Shibarium is a layer-2 solution that aims to facilitate transactions of the Shiba tokens. The Ethereum blockchain (where the ecosystem is based) often gets congested, gas fees go to the moon, and transaction speed reduces. The SHIB ecosystem is highly dependent on this because it requires many NFT and smart contract interactions. Shibarium L2 is meant to make transactions faster and cheaper. The launch is planned for Q3-Q4 2022.

Vision for the Future

Shiba Inu is not even close to implementing all plans proposed by the community. Currently, devs are working at Shiberse (a metaverse that is not live yet, but you can buy land there with LEASH tokens), Shiba Inu Game, and the Shibarium L2 solution.

We talked to a few Shiba Inu influencers and asked them what they think of the ecosystem’s future.

Gossip SHIB believes that the Shiba Inu token is to become a global cryptocurrency for savings, investing, and lending. Land in Shiberse will become valuable and competitive to the other metaverses.

$SHIB KNIGHT emphasizes the particular role of ShibaSwap in the ecosystem. He believes that the decentralized exchange will rock the DeFi world. The Shiba Inu token will be widely adopted, it is already becoming a means of payment in many industries, and SHIBArmy will continue to promote it. The Shiba community is international and comprises people with different views who like to profit from that by sharing development and business ideas, encouraging the use of SHIB in different areas.

The perseverance of the SHIBArmy has helped it succeed in establishing new use cases. Many businesses and online stores accept it thanks to gateways like NOWPayments. Some organizations even pay salaries in SHIB. Venezuela opened a food park dedicated to Shiba. The SHIBArmy even contacts local politicians and explains the perks of using this decentralized currency.

Hold Your Shiba Inu Tokens in NOW Wallet

One of the best solutions for simple and secure storage of Shiba Inu is NOW Wallet. The app is available for Android and iPhone and boasts a lightweight interface that is easy to navigate. The wallet is non-custodial, so only you have access to private keys. NOW allows you to store over 350 cryptocurrencies, including SHIB and LEASH, and there are built-in token swap tools powered by ChangeNOW and fiat purchases and withdrawals provided by our partners.

Summary

We don’t know who Ryoshi is and what he had in mind while creating Shiba Inu, but the token has evolved into a powerful community with a robust ecosystem. A distributed team or developers and designers nurtures the project. The Shiba Incubator gives talens the opportunity to express themselves. In the ShibaSwap decentralized exchange, users can enjoy numerous features, lucrative opportunities, and NFTs. Shibarium is an L2 solution for SHIB that will free the token from Ethereum’s high gas fees, and Shiberse is the dedicated metaverse of the ecosystem.

In its early days, Shiba Inu was an experiment launched when the dog meme tokens forced by Elon Musk were not yet as popular. As SHIB surged in 2021, we witnessed a rapid rise of its ecosystem that happened in just a year. Given the size of SHIBArmy and the motivation of its members, we have reason to believe that the environment will grow further, and the SHIB token will not lose its position among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap.